The article compares life expectancy at birth and "healthy life expectancy" (HALE) for males and females around the world in 1990 and 2010. As you might expect, the numbers generally improved in those two decades.
For example, Canadian males born in 1990 have a life expectancy of 74.0 years, with a HALE of 63.9. American males are not so well off: Those born in 1990 have a life expectancy of 71.7 and a HALE of 62.3. Those born in 2010 were up to 75.9, with a HALE of 65.
In general the trend is similar around the world, but in Haiti the statistics have gone into reverse.
In 1990, newborn males had a life expectancy of 53.3, with a HALE of 44.9. Females had a life expectancy of 55.0, with a HALE of 46.2. In other words, Haitians born 22 years ago are unlikely to reach age 50 as healthy individuals.
Haitian males born in 2010 have a life expectancy of 32.5, and their HALE is 27.9. Life expectancy for females is 43.6, with a HALE of 37.1. Those appear to be the lowest in the world.
That is the most appalling vital statistic I have ever seen. The authors attribute the drop to the catastrophic losses of the January 12 earthquake. But it would have helped to see the numbers for 2009, if only to compare. We don't really even know how many people died: MSPP lacked the resources for a tally even before that disaster, and lost many of its people in the quake.
I would also like to see some numbers for 2011 or 2012, after the cholera outbreak had become endemic. Granted that MSPP's numbers are not reliable, as of December 4 they show 7,787 cholera deaths, of which 592 were of children 5 or younger. That might have some influence on the numbers.
This disastrous reversal comes after a decade of UN intervention (and years of American intervention before that). The number of NGOs trying to "help Haiti" is literally uncountable, and yet the country is worse off than it was 20 years before. The international community might reflect on that achievement before it decides what to do next.
