• Generally, the health of the population is improving, worldwide, even if the health inequalities have remained static or widened.
• In the EU, the estimated life expectancy at birth is 81 years.
• In the United States, the richest men could live 15 years longer than those in the bottom 1% of the income distribution. For women, the difference is about 10 years, equivalent to the difference between smokers and non-smokers.
• Pandemics, such as Coronavirus, could play a role in reducing social and economic inequalities.
• Vulnerable populations are more affected by COVID-19, the virus that emerged in China in late 2019. 
• COVID-19 crisis is accentuating the gap between those who can afford healthcare and those who cannot and may be forced into extreme poverty as a consequence. 
• Access to healthcare is as important as the capacity of health systems, rising high concerns for citizens already living in poverty or experiencing income inequality. | Related Megatrends:  Health
• Pandemics could bring additional economic risks for low-income or less secure workers.
• Elite getting priority access to intensive care in private hospitals while middle-income citizens are being turned away from public hospitals, could become a realistic scenario during pandemics. 
• Globally, over 50% of the population (some 4 billion people) do not receive all of the essential health services and about 100 million people fall into extreme poverty each year because of health expenses. | Related Megatrends: Health
• The higher the level of income inequality, the higher the rate of cardiovascular-related deaths, hospitalizations, risk of schizophrenia and chronic stress. 
• In addition to genetics and environmental factors, socio-economic status can influence peoples' health and types of disease. For example, women in the United States have lower rates of obesity as their income rises.
• The 10/90 gap -- 90% of the world’s expenditure on health R&D being devoted to problems that primarily affect the richest 10% of the world’s population -- affects the most vulnerable.
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• Social protection has been significantly extended globally, yet persons with disabilities are up to five times more likely than average to incur catastrophic health expenditures.
  | Related Megatrends: Health
• The challenge of non-communicable diseases is increasing. Nutrition is one of the main factors. Some 1.4 billion people are overweight or obese. | Related Megatrend: Health
• One in three European children are overweight due to high-calorie diets and sedentary lifestyles. Some 2.8 million deaths per year are associated with obesity, and conditions related to obesity absorb 7% of the EU's national health budgets.
  | Related Megatrend: Health
• Obesity has spread further in the past five years, although at a slower pace than before, and could continue to increase in the future.
• By 2030, obesity rates could further increase, Korea and Switzerland representing the countries where obesity rates are projected to increase at a faster pace.
• Education and socio-economic background affect obesity, and at the same time obesity decreases productivity and contributes to reinforcing existing social inequalities.
• Less-educated women are two to three times more likely to be overweight than those with a higher level of education.
• Malnutrition could affect over 50% of the global population by 2030, unless urgent action is taken to improve access to high-quality food. | Related Megatrends: Inequalities; Natural resources
• Overuse of antibiotics is increasing antimicrobial resistance (AMR). Unless changes to use of antibiotics (by humans and in agriculture) and finding of new class of antibiotics, the global annual death toll due to AMR could grow from today's estimated 700,000 peaople (one person a minute) to 10 million a year by 2050. 

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