McKinsey Health Institute

From crisis to catalyst: Investing in addressing noncommunicable diseases

| Interactive
Alex Beauvais Brad Herbig Matt Wilson  Pooja Kumar
Without urgent action, noncommunicable diseases could cost the world $36 trillion—but scaling interventions that work can both reverse the trend and serve as an engine for economic growth.

At a glance

  • Noncommunicable diseases (NCDs) are responsible for approximately 46 million deaths and 768 million years lived in poor health each year.
  • Scaling access to known interventions could address about 35 percent of the global disease burden of NCDs and mental health conditions, preventing around 28 million deaths annually and adding 396 million years of healthy life globally in 2050.
  • This investment in the health of society could add $11 trillion to the global economy in 2050 through a healthier and more productive labor force.

Even if a person is in excellent health, everyone knows someone—if not many people—with a noncommunicable disease (NCD), such as heart disease, diabetes, depression, or cancer. That’s no accident: As populations continue to age around the world,1 NCDs are becoming more widespread, and the current prevention and intervention efforts cannot keep up.2 Currently, NCDs are responsible for approximately 46 million deaths and 768 million years lived in poor health each year.3

Without action, this burden will rise, with estimates projecting up to 75 million deaths from NCDs—and 1.1 billion years in poor health—in 2050.4 This means the average person in 2050 will spend about 42 days per year in poor health due to NCDs. The result? A loss of independence that affects the activities of daily living; less ability to be fully engaged at work; and fewer chances to visit with friends, children, or grandchildren.

Beyond the clear human costs, the growing burden of NCDs poses a major threat to economies worldwide, creating an estimated $36 trillion drag on global GDP in 2050, equivalent to 20 percent of projected GDP. NCDs reduce the labor supply due to premature death and ill health, while also undermining productivity across entire workforces.5 Whether they are conscious of it or not, employers in all sectors are affected, as poor employee health correlates to higher absenteeism and less productivity.

At a time when investing in health is under threat due to competing priorities, society also is witnessing the transformative impact from intervening in NCDs. Australia is on track to be the first country to eliminate cervical cancer through scaling up HPV vaccination and cervical screening interventions.6 Scaling tobacco control measures in Brazil has led to a 35 percent reduction in tobacco use since 2010.7 And recent breakthrough treatments such as GLP-1s have the potential to transform metabolic health.8 Society is in an era of outstanding potential, yet with scarce funding to achieve that potential.9

Methodology

The Prioritizing Health model evaluates the potential to reduce the global burden of disease by scaling access to proven health interventions and estimates the resulting impacts on the global economy of that reduced burden.

Model overview

Disease Burden Analysis: The model leverages the 2021 Global Burden of Disease data set from the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) to analyze the burden of approximately 80 diseases, which account for 90 percent of the global disease burden, and 27 risk factors, representing 98 percent of risk-attributable burden. It estimates the potential reduction in disease burden by scaling proven health interventions to aspirational best-practice adoption levels.

Economic Burden Estimation: The model quantifies economic losses associated with poor health, including premature deaths, disability from diseases, reduced productivity in adults, future productivity losses in children, and economic impacts from lower workforce participation by caregivers. To estimate premature deaths and disability, the model used baseline disease burden projections from the IHME Global Burden of Disease study. Productivity losses were calculated for specific conditions where the literature provided data on the proportion of work hours lost due to reduced productivity. Economic losses related to informal caregiving were estimated using the prevalence of informal caregivers and studies detailing reductions in labor force participation and productivity. Finally, total reduced work hours were used to estimate the impact on GDP, leveraging data on GDP per employed individual, labor force participation rates, and unemployment rates from Oxford Economics and International Labor Organization datasets.

Intervention Identification and Effectiveness Estimation: A thorough literature review was conducted to identify scalable, evidence-based health interventions. Data on the effectiveness and current adoption rates of these interventions were extracted from around 500 individual studies, covering approximately 300 interventions. Key sources included leading institutions such as the World Health Organization (WHO), the Disease Control Priorities Network, and The Lancet. These sources and a wide range of other peer-reviewed studies informed the assumptions for each intervention.

Modeling Disease Burden Reduction: The model simulates the sequential implementation of health interventions on a year-over-year basis to quantify the potential reduction in disease burden over time for each condition–intervention pair. Adoption assumptions vary by intervention and reflect an aspirational scenario, illustrating what could be achieved over a 25-year period (2025–50) with gradual scaling.

Economic Impact Estimation: The potential economic benefits of reducing the disease burden are evaluated across several key dimensions, including reductions in premature mortality, disability, and the demands of informal caregiving, as well as improvements in productivity and future earnings for children. Together, these factors influence the size and productivity of the labor force, translating health advancements into tangible economic outcomes. The economic gains from lowering premature deaths and disability are based on previously calculated estimates of disease burden reduction. For productivity improvements, we drew on existing research that quantifies productivity losses associated with specific disease areas. Furthermore, the impact of informal caregiving was analyzed by estimating the economic benefits of increased labor force participation among caregivers and productivity enhancements for those already employed. Baseline projections for gross domestic product, employment, and labor force participation rates were sourced from Oxford Economics and the International Labor Organization. These projections cover over 200 countries, broken down by five-year age groups and sex, spanning the period from 2025–50.

Cost and Return on Investment: Implementation costs and economic returns are estimated using cost-per-disability-adjusted-life-year (cost-per-DALY) metrics from gold-standard databases such as Tufts Medical Center’s CEA Registry and WHO-CHOICE. Where data were unavailable from these two databases, we used estimates from external literature. For the remaining interventions, cost-per-DALY was estimated for each country income group using typical ratios in costs identified through studies examining costs across all country income groups. Cost-per-DALY for each intervention–country pair was then estimated using the identified country income group estimates and World Bank Group’s health price index. Using the total DALYs averted by each intervention in each country, the total cost of scaling interventions was estimated, and economic return was calculated as GDP uplift divided by total cost of scaling interventions.

Limitations of our analysis

A number of limitations are inherent in an attempt to understand how global health could be improved through scaling known interventions and what the benefits would be in 25 years. These arise from uncertainties surrounding the evolution of the global disease burden, the availability and effectiveness of different interventions in diverse populations, and the impact of improvements in health on society and the economy. We manage these uncertainties in each step of our analysis in the following ways:

1. The evolution of the disease burden: We rely on disease burden forecasts provided by IHME, which maintains the most comprehensive database of the global disease burden. Forecasts of the global disease burden are inherently uncertain, and health shocks and other political events may affect forecasts.

2. The availability and effectiveness of interventions: Our estimates are a snapshot of a very large scientific evidence base that is constantly evolving, often inconclusive, and uneven (in quantity and quality) across disease areas and specific interventions. In addition to the uncertainty inherent in the underlying evidence and our interpretation and application of it, other aspects of our methodological approach, such as the choices we have made in the sequencing of interventions, influence our findings. We have reduced these risks by sharing and reviewing our approach and interim results with academic and clinical experts at all stages of the research process.

3. Economic potential: In the economic analysis, we make assumptions about what labor market choices people can and choose to make if health benefits are realized. Importantly, we make assumptions about rates of participation in the labor force for groups at different ages and in different health states. These assumptions are grounded in evidence, such as statistics on current and historic rates of labor force participation by age group, country, and health status. Another key assumption was that the labor market could fully absorb additions to the workforce at average levels of productivity.

In this context, the United Nations General Assembly will convene the UN Fourth High-level Meeting on the Prevention and Control of Noncommunicable Diseases and the Promotion of Mental Health and Well-being in September 2025, aiming to intensify global action toward alleviating the burden of NCDs. Transforming and improving lives and livelihoods requires stakeholders to shift from seeing healthcare as a cost to contain to viewing it as an investment in human capital. In this briefing and an upcoming report, the McKinsey Health Institute’s (MHI) analysis sizes the potential for known health interventions to bend the curve of disease burden. It also shows the economic opportunity that investing in health can bring (see sidebar, “Methodology”).

Bending the curve of disease burden by scaling what works

There is a substantial opportunity to create impact by scaling what works. Using MHI’s Prioritizing Health model, we estimated the potential health and economic benefits of expanding access to more than 220 evidence-based cost-effective interventions that target modifiable risk factors, prevention, and treatment of NCDs and mental health conditions. If scaled to ambitious yet achievable levels worldwide, these interventions could address about 35 percent of the global disease burden of NCDs and mental health conditions, preventing around 28 million deaths annually and adding 396 million years of healthy life globally in 2050. For the average person, this translates to 15 additional healthy days every year.

At the individual level, this revolutionary improvement in human health would mean that, on average, a person born in the next 25 years could live five years longer and gain seven years of healthy life expectancy. This would reverse the long-term trend of the average person spending more years in poor health than the generation before did. Beyond the personal benefits—more quality time with loved ones, the ability to work on a passion project after retirement, or staying in good health long enough to travel—a healthier population also fuels economic growth.

Good health—good investment

Improving global health isn’t just the right thing to do—it is also an excellent investment. Investing in scaling proven health interventions could also add $11 trillion to global GDP in 2050, equivalent to 6 percent of projected GDP, with every dollar invested yielding a potential return of $4.

  • Better health would mean fewer short- and long-term absences from work, which could add $6.2 trillion to the global economy in 2050.
  • Reducing presenteeism—when employees are at work but not fully productive—could boost productivity by $1.1 trillion in 2050.
  • Preventing premature death: Better health and well-being enables people to live longer, more fulfilling lives, both personally and professionally, adding $2 trillion to the global economy in 2050.
  • A healthier population would reduce the need for informal caregiving, freeing up time for caregivers to either rejoin the workforce or be more productive in their current jobs. This could contribute $1.8 trillion to GDP in 2050.
  • Finally, addressing the childhood disease burden would not only protect the well-being of vulnerable young people but also improve their educational outcomes and enable future generations to grow into healthier, more productive adults. This could add $300 billion to GDP in 2050.

Scaling proven health interventions can help reduce the global cost of healthcare. Unlike many other sectors, healthcare has a unique advantage: The highest-quality care is also the least expensive, because preventing people from becoming sick in the first place costs less than treating severe illness later. Increasing access to these preventative interventions could lower the projected time the average person spends in poor health due to NCDs from 42 days annually to 33 days in 2050. For leaders of health systems, this reduction highlights the opportunity to substantially decrease the need for medical treatments, hospitalizations, and long-term care through investments in preventative care and risk reduction, thereby alleviating both the financial and operational pressures on healthcare systems.

Decision-makers always face tough trade-offs when evaluating budgets. But investing more and investing better in health can be seen as part of a comprehensive strategy that can boost other sectors and create broader economic and societal benefits. We believe the health of our people really is our greatest asset.

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