This report is not a country scorecard. Rather, its purpose is to act as a compass to guide progress towards health in the SDGs. There has been a significant improvement in the state of health in the region with healthy life expectancy - time spent in full health - in the region increasing from 50.9 years to 53.8 between 2012 and 2015 - the most marked increase of any region in the world. What is making Africans sick is changing. The top killers are still lower respiratory infections, HIV and diarrhoeal disease and countries have routinely focused on preventing and treating this trio, often through specialized programmes. The payoff has been significant declines in deaths due to these diseases. There has been a 50% reduction in the burden of disease caused by what have been the top 10 killers since 2000 and death rates have dropped from 87.7 to 51.1 deaths per 100,000 persons between 2000 and 2015... Chronic diseases like heart disease and cancer are now claiming more lives with a person aged 30 to 70 in the region having a one in five chance of dying from a noncommunicable disease (NCDs). Countries are specifically failing to provide essential services to two critical age groups – adolescents and the elderly...