, Denmark had a

life expectancy Life expectancy is a statistical measure of the average time an organism is expected to live, based on the year of its birth, current age, and other demographic factors like sex. The most commonly used measure is life expectancy at birth ...

of 79.5 years at birth (77 for men, 82 for women), up from 75 years in 1990. This ranks it 37th among 193 nations, behind the other Nordic countries. The ''National Institute of Public Health'' of the

University of Southern Denmark The University of Southern Denmark ( da, Syddansk Universitet, lit=South Danish University, abbr. SDU) is a university in Denmark that has campuses located in Southern Denmark and on Zealand. The university offers a number of joint programmes in ...

has calculated 19 major risk factors among Danes that contribute to a lowering of the life expectancy; this includes smoking, alcohol, drug abuse and

physical inactivity Physical inactivity refers to the lack of moderate-to-vigorous physical activity in a person's lifestyle. It is distinct from sedentary behavior. Health effects The World Health Organization (WHO) has defined physical inactivity as a global public ...

. The large number of Danes becoming overweight is an increasing problem and results in an annual additional consumption in the health care system of DKK 1,625 million. In a 2012 study, Denmark had the highest

cancer Cancer is a group of diseases involving abnormal cell growth with the potential to invade or spread to other parts of the body. These contrast with benign tumors, which do not spread. Possible signs and symptoms include a lump, abnormal b ...

rate of all countries listed by the

World Cancer Research Fund International World Cancer Research Fund International is a not-for-profit association related to cancer prevention research related to diet Diet may refer to: Food * Diet (nutrition), the sum of the food consumed by an organism or group * Dieting, the del ...

; researchers suggest the reasons are better reporting, but also lifestyle factors like heavy alcohol consumption, smoking and physical inactivity. Denmark had the second highest death rate from alcohol of any region in Europe in 2015 at 6.9 per 100,000 population. A new measure of expected human capital calculated for 195 countries from 1990 to 2016 and defined for each birth cohort as the expected years lived from age 20 to 64 years and adjusted for educational attainment, learning or education quality, and functional health status was published by the Lancet in September 2018. Denmark had the third highest level of expected human capital with 27 health, education, and learning-adjusted expected years lived between age 20 and 64 years.

References

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