Report Identifies 17 Catastrophic Threats To Global Health By 2100

A new report by The Lancet has identified 17 interconnected threats that could cause catastrophic health losses, undermine economic stability and endanger human survival by 2100.

The threats include climate change, air pollution, antimicrobial resistance (AMR), childhood malnutrition, nuclear conflict, malicious use of artificial intelligence (AI), pandemics, obesity, high blood pressure, smoking, poor mental health and income inequality.

Others are conventional conflict, declining development assistance for health, high alcohol consumption, low educational attainment and unhealthy ageing.

The findings are contained in The Lancet Commission on 21st Century Global Threats to Health, published and launched at the World Health Summit 2026 in Berlin, Germany.

Drawing on risk analysis covering 204 countries and territories, the Commission warned that the threats could collectively account for tens of billions of years of lost healthy life if current trends continue.

It identified nuclear conflict and malicious use of AI as threats with the potential to cause human extinction. According to the report, preventing nuclear conflict could avert an estimated 133 million deaths and 9.35 billion disability-adjusted life years (DALYs) by 2100, while reducing the risk of malicious AI could avert 10.4 billion DALYs.

The Commission also warned that limiting global warming to 1.8 degrees Celsius, rather than allowing it to reach 4.4 degrees Celsius, could prevent 1.89 billion years of healthy life from being lost to causes including extreme heat and air pollution.

It is estimated that improvements in educational attainment could prevent 16.1 billion DALYs, while reducing obesity risks could avert 23.1 billion DALYs by 2100.

Income inequality could also contribute to an avoidable health burden equivalent to 25 COVID-19 pandemics, representing an estimated 13.8 billion DALYs.

The report further projected that sub-Saharan Africa would bear approximately 70 per cent of the avoidable health burden associated with a collapse in development assistance for health.

Co-chair of the Commission and Director of the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington, Professor Christopher JL Murray, said decisions taken today would determine the health and well-being of future generations.

“The striking finding is not only the scale of these threats, but that humanity still has the agency to act,” he said, warning that delaying action would increase future costs.

The Commission recommended strengthening health system preparedness, increasing investment in innovations such as vaccines and antibiotics, and improving the monitoring of emerging threats.

It also called for coordinated action across health, finance, climate, defence and security sectors, stressing that the threats were interconnected and required collective responses.

The Commission, co-chaired by former United Nations Population Fund Executive Director, Dr Natalia Kanem, brought together 35 experts in health, economics, security, governance and technology.