161 PREVENTING RISKS AND TAKING ACTION FOCUSING ON PREVENTION MEANS FOCUSING ON RISKS n order to protect and improve health around the world, much more emphasis is needed preventing the actual causes of important diseases- the underlying risks to health as well as treating the established diseases themselves. Prevention can best be achieved rough concerted efforts to identify and reduce common, major risks and by taking ad vantage of the prevention opportunities they present his report shows that about 47% of global mortality is attributable to the leading 20 risk factors that have been assessed in earlier chapters, and that more than one third of that burden is attributable to just 10 of those factors. Tackling these risks effectively could lead to almost a decade more of healthy life expectancy globally. The potential improvements in global health are much greater than generally realized- extra years of healthy life expect ancy could be gained for populations in all countries within the next decade The greatest gains would be in some of the poorest nations- with perhaps ten more healthy life years achievable. The potential benefits extend across all countries and all levels of socioeconomic development. Even in the most developed countries of North America and Europe, another five or so years of healthy life expectancy for the population is within Looking towards the potential global burden of disease in the next two decades, Chap- ter 4 showed that reducing risk by 25% will result in large amounts of that burden being avoided. Translated into human terms, this offers the prospect of millions of premature deaths being averted, and of many more millions of people being spared years of disease, disability and ill-health. It might mean, for example, that in the year 2010 more than a million deaths from HIVAIDS and the loss of 40 million healthy life years related to unsafe sex would be averted, as would more than a million deaths and over 35 million lost healthy life years from cardiovascular diseases related to blood pressure and cholesterol However, Chapter 4 also gave a measure of the cost of inaction. It predicted that by the rear 2020 there will be nne n nillion deaths caused by tobacco, compared to almost five million a year now; five million deaths attributable to overweight and obesity, compare three million now; and that the number of healthy life years lost by underweight children will be 60 million, which although less than half the 130 million now, is still unacceptablyPreventing Risks and Taking Action 161 7 PREVENTING RISKS AND TAKING ACTION FOCUSING ON PREVENTION MEANS FOCUSING ON RISKS  n order to protect and improve health around the world, much more emphasis is needed on preventing the actual causes of important diseases – the underlying risks to health – as well as treating the established diseases themselves. Prevention can best be achieved through concerted efforts to identify and reduce common, major risks and by taking ad￾vantage of the prevention opportunities they present. This report shows that about 47% of global mortality is attributable to the leading 20 risk factors that have been assessed in earlier chapters, and that more than one third of that burden is attributable to just 10 of those factors. Tackling these risks effectively could lead to almost a decade more of healthy life expectancy globally. The potential improvements in global health are much greater than generally realized – extra years of healthy life expect￾ancy could be gained for populations in all countries within the next decade. The greatest gains would be in some of the poorest nations – with perhaps ten more healthy life years achievable. The potential benefits extend across all countries and all levels of socioeconomic development. Even in the most developed countries of North America and Europe, another five or so years of healthy life expectancy for the population is within reach. Looking towards the potential global burden of disease in the next two decades, Chap￾ter 4 showed that reducing risk by 25% will result in large amounts of that burden being avoided. Translated into human terms, this offers the prospect of millions of premature deaths being averted, and of many more millions of people being spared years of disease, disability and ill-health. It might mean, for example, that in the year 2010 more than a million deaths from HIV/AIDS and the loss of 40 million healthy life years related to unsafe sex would be averted, as would more than a million deaths and over 35 million lost healthy life years from cardiovascular diseases related to blood pressure and cholesterol. However, Chapter 4 also gave a measure of the cost of inaction. It predicted that by the year 2020 there will be nine million deaths caused by tobacco, compared to almost five million a year now; five million deaths attributable to overweight and obesity, compared to three million now; and that the number of healthy life years lost by underweight children will be 60 million, which although less than half the 130 million now, is still unacceptably high