Petra News Agency
Monday, September 17, 2007
Jordanians Life Expectancy
Improves
Amman, Sept. 17 (Petra)—Jordan was able to increase the rate of life expectancy
from birth to 71.7 years from 71.5 years in 2005 , according to a new report by
the Department of Statistics.
Assistant DoS Director for Technical Affairs Kamal Saleh said the increase is an
important accomplishment as it needs major efforts that include improving the
environment, increasing family income and education opportunities for women and
reducing child mortality rate.
Life expectancy for women on the world level is higher than that of men and it
stands at 72.5 years for women compared to 70.8 years for men in Jordan, Kamal
added in a statement to Jordan News Agency, Petra.
This he said is attributed to biological and environmental factors that affect
the life of men and women and give women the opportunity to live longer than
men.
“Life expectancy in any country is affected by other factors including infant
mortality rate, Kamal added, noting that Jordan was able to reduce this rate
from 32 per 1000 births in 1997 to 24 per 1000 births in 2002.
Diseases Monitoring Director at the Health Ministry Bassam Hijjawi said that
sound discovery and diagnosis of diseases contributed to improving the quality
of life in the Kingdom, noting that giving more attention to the elderly had a
positive impact on increasing life expectancy.
U.S. reports released last months indicated that life expectancy in the U.S. has
reached its highest point ever, but it was exceeded by the rates in 41 other
countries including Jordan, Japan and most of Europe.
The country with the longest life expectancy in the world was Andorra at 83.5
years, while the African nation of Swaziland was last at 34.1 years.