Overview

• Using data from 161,981 adults in 40 countries, researchers developed a biobehavioural age-gap metric to quantify accelerated ageing across environmental, social and political exposures.
• The study links high air pollution levels, social inequality and weak democratic institutions to significant increases in biological ageing.
• Age acceleration was most pronounced in Egypt and South Africa and slowest in European nations, with Asia and Latin America in intermediate positions.
• Top medical risk factors driving faster ageing included high blood pressure, hearing impairment and heart disease.
• Authors call for public health policies to move beyond lifestyle guidance and address upstream governance and inequality to foster healthier ageing.