FOR much of modern history, one of healthcare’s greatest achievements has been extending life. A child born in Malaysia today can expect to live 75.3 years, nearly two decades longer than one born around the time of independence.
That reflects decades of progress in healthcare, public health and living standards.
Yet this success raises a more important question: should progress be measured only by how long people live, or also by how much of that life is spent in good health?
We spend considerable time measuring economic growth, workforce participation, productivity and competitiveness, while healthcare systems often judge success through mortality rates and life expectancy.
Both matter, but neither fully captures whether people remain healthy enough to pursue their ambitions, care for loved ones, contribute to their communities and live on their own terms.
The next frontier is not simply extending life. It is protecting the years that make longer lives meaningful.
The years that power a nation
The years lived in good health are often the years when people build careers, support families, care for ageing parents, create businesses and strengthen their communities. They are also the years on which economies depend.
When chronic disease interrupts those years, the consequences extend well beyond healthcare.
In Malaysia, non-communicable diseases were estimated to have cost RM64.2 bil in 2021, including RM51.8 bil in productivity losses and RM12.4 bil in public healthcare expenditure and disability payments.
While these figures reflect the broader burden of non-communicable diseases rather than cardiovascular disease alone, they illustrate an important reality: the impact of illness is often felt long before it appears in healthcare budgets.
Cardiovascular disease makes that cost especially clear. Ischaemic heart disease was Malaysia’s leading cause of death in 2024, accounting for 17,421 deaths, or 13% of medically certified deaths. Yet mortality statistics capture only part of the story.
Behind every data point are lives reshaped by illness, families adapting to new caregiving responsibilities and communities losing valuable experience and participation.
As Malaysia invests in its future, long-term prosperity will depend not only on infrastructure and innovation, but also on people remaining healthy enough to benefit from the opportunities that progress creates.
Prevention’s visibility problem
Prevention is often difficult to prioritise because its success is largely invisible.
When prevention works, there is no headline. A complication never occurs, independence is maintained and life continues as planned. Yet these unseen outcomes are precisely what make prevention so valuable.
In cardiovascular health, prevention begins with understanding risk earlier. LDL-C, commonly known as “bad cholesterol”, is a leading cause of atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease, and its impact depends not only on how high a person’s cholesterol level is, but also on how long that risk has accumulated.
This reinforces the importance of earlier awareness and more informed conversations between individuals and healthcare professionals.
The goal is not to medicalise everyday life, but to help people understand their risk and act before disease begins to limit their independence and wellbeing.
A shared responsibility
The responsibility for healthy longevity does not belong to any single stakeholder.
Healthcare professionals provide clinical expertise. Patient organisations contribute lived experience and advocacy. Policymakers shape supportive environments. Employers can improve access to preventive health initiatives, while industry brings innovation, partnerships and education.
At Novartis Malaysia, the Unblocked Movement is one example of an initiative designed to make cardiovascular risk easier to understand and encourage earlier action. But no single programme or organisation can solve this challenge alone.
When people remain healthier for longer, individuals have greater opportunities to live, work and age well. Families face fewer disruptions associated with illness and caregiving, employers benefit from stronger workforce participation, and the broader economy gains from a population able to contribute for longer.
Protecting what matters most
World Heart Day on Sept 29 is often an opportunity to focus on disease. Perhaps it should also be an opportunity to reflect on something broader: the conditions that allow people to remain active, productive and fully engaged in their own lives.
The challenge facing many countries today is no longer simply whether people are living longer. In many cases, they are. The more pressing question is whether those additional years are healthy ones.
Cardiovascular health therefore matters far beyond the clinic. It shapes quality of life, economic resilience and a country’s ability to realise its investments in people, education and innovation.
In the years ahead, countries will continue debating competitiveness, quality of life and long-term prosperity. Healthy years sit at the heart of all three.
Economic indicators rarely capture their value, yet they may be among society’s greatest assets. Protecting those years may become one of the defining investments in our collective future. ‒ Sept 22, 2026
Sanjeev Balachandran is Country President, Novartis Malaysia, Brunei, and Asia Emerging Markets.
The views expressed are solely of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of Focus Malaysia.
Main image: Unsplash/Mufid Majnun
