ABU DHABI, 8 September — The UAE ranks highest among the countries of the Arab world with a life expectancy approaching 75 years, which is comparable to that of high-income countries (78 years in 1998), according to an official report released by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP).
According to the first Arab Human Development Report (AHDR) life expectancy for women either equals or exceeds that for males, but the difference between the two sexes is 2.5 years or less, in around two-thirds of the countries. For the remainder, the difference is between 3 and 3.5 years. The global average difference is around four years, and in countries with high human development, it can be as much as 11 years, said the report, quoted by the Khaleej Times newspaper.
This suggests, according to the AHDR, that there is room for improvement in women’s chances of survival in Arab countries. The World Health Organization’s (WHO) disability-adjusted expectation of life at birth (DALE) index indicates that close to a third of Arab countries lose more than nine years of life expectancy to disability, with expectation of disability at birth tending to be higher for females than for males.
This excess was seen to be more than two years in about half of the countries considered, and indicated that females lost most of their initial survival advantage by spending more life-years in disability — again pointing up women’s health as a priority for policy.
The AHDR said that countries with the highest survival rates are not necessarily those with lower disability, pointing out that Kuwait, Oman and Qatar, for example, lost more than nine years in disability, although internationally most countries with low mortality rates tended to lose only between six and seven years in disability.
It stated that the high burden of ill health in countries with the highest survival rates was further confirmed by the recently conducted Gulf Family Health Surveys (GFHS), which indicated that close to one in five adults (age 15+) in each of these countries experience a long-standing illness or disability, and females tend to have a much higher burden than males.
The proportion of females reporting long-standing illness exceeds that of males by more than six percent, and can be up to 8.5 percent higher. Available estimates of disability are in the neighborhood of eight to 24 per thousand, which are considered to be much less than might actually be the case.
Both infant and child mortality vary greatly among Arab countries, with Infant Mortality Rate (IMR) ranging from a low of 10.2 per thousand in Qatar to a high of 75.3 in Yemen.
The under-five death rate varies from less than 20 to over 100 per thousand. Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates have a very low child mortality rate (below 20 per thousand) while Djibouti, Iraq, Mauritania, Somalia, Sudan, and Yemen experience extremely high levels (despite the fact that Iraq had achieved a rate in the neighborhood of 20 before the Gulf War). The AHDR pointed out that the Arab region was the first in the developing world where most countries reduced mortality rates of under-five children to the target of 70 per thousand by 1990, well ahead of the global goal. Nevertheless, it noted that development was not restricted to the oil-rich Arab countries, with Tunisia and Yemen being among the 10 countries that experienced the fastest improvements in the world in, respectively, raising life expectancy and reducing under-five mortality.
Differences also existed between rural and urban areas in this context, it said.
The AHDR indicated that most Arab countries have a serious health problem with stunt, with Yemen recording a high of 52 percent, Mauritania 44 percent, and Comoros, Iraq and Sudan above 30 percent.
It noted that Arab countries such as Egypt, Kuwait, Libya, Morocco, Oman, Saudi Arabia, Syria, and the UAE with levels of stunting between 15 percent and 25 percent, needed to identify and address the underlying problems of nutritional status, whether caused by dietary patterns, environmental conditions, or disparities in food distribution.
It also identified maternal mortality as being a serious health challenge in Arab countries, with more than half the Arab countries considered in the AHDR having a Maternal Mortality Ratio (MMR) exceeding 75 per 100,000 live births, and as many as a third having an MMR exceeding 200 per 100,000 live births.
Only Kuwait and the UAE have managed to reduce maternal mortality to a level that is low by international standards (not more than five per 100,000 live births).
The other Gulf countries of Oman, Qatar and Saudi Arabia have moderately low levels (between 10 and 20 per 100,000 live births), but these levels remain higher than those for countries with comparable command over economic resources.
The AHDR study of four Arab countries — Bahrain, Egypt, Jordan and Tunisia — indicated a substantial degree of ill health, with around a third of the elderly perceiving themselves as unhealthy, and at least 50 percent suffering from sight problems and having difficulties with walking.
Only a very small portion (between 5 percent and 43 percent) scored favorably on the scales of high morale or low depression.
