With advances and accessibility to quality healthcare, life expectancy globally has increased tremendously over the last century. 

However, new research which compared the life expectancy of English speaking, high income countries over the past two decades have seen a trend of stagnation or even decline in countries such as the United Kingdom and United States.

While the outlook overall for Australia’s life expectancy is amongst the highest globally,  there is a growing gap amongst younger Australians aged under 50 with an outlook of lowered life expectancy, compared to those over. 

So what factors are contributing towards the stagnating life expectancy for younger Australians and what actions are required to close the difference?

Dr Sergey Timonin, a demographer and research fellow at Australian National University school of Demography joined Annie from The Monday Daily to chat more on his research in the changing trends on life expectancies.