US Life Expectancy Falls Further (cnn.com)

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on Thursday released data that shows life expectancy fell by one-tenth of a year, to 78.6 years (Warning: source paywalled; alternative source), pushed down by the sharpest annual increase in suicide in nearly a decade and a continued rise in deaths from opioid drugs. "Influenza, pneumonia and diabetes also factored into last year's increase," The Wall Street Journal adds. From the report: Economists and public-health experts consider life expectancy to be an important measure of a nation's prosperity. The 2017 data paint a dark picture of health and well-being in the U.S., reflecting the effects of addiction and despair, particularly among young and middle-aged adults, as well as diseases plaguing an aging population and people with lower access to health care. The U.S. has lost three-tenths of a year in life expectancy since 2014, a stunning reversal for a developed nation, and lags far behind other wealthy nations. Life expectancy is 84.1 years in Japan and 83.7 years in Switzerland, first and second in the most-recent ranking by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. The U.S. ranks 29th.

White men and women fared the worst, along with black men, all of whom experienced increases in death rates. Death rates rose in particular for adults ages 25 to 44, and suicide rates are highest among people in the nation's most rural areas. On the other hand, deaths declined for black and Hispanic women, and remained the same for Hispanic men. As drug and suicide mortality has risen, deaths from heart disease, the nation's leading killer, went down only slightly, failing to offset the increases in mortality from other causes and prolonging another worrisome trend.

Comments

Courtesy of China

[melted]

30k deaths in 2017 from fentanyl overdose, most of it coming from China. And rates are growing exponentially.

Really? Surprise! (NOT)

[jimbrooking]

American life expectancy has for years (since I've been following it) trailed most developed nations, according to the OECD (https://www.oecd.org/els/family/CO_1_2_Life_expectancy_at_birth.pdf). Kind of goes along with paying more than any other country in the world for healthcare (https://data.oecd.org/healthres/health-spending.htm), and having poor showings in most measures of public health (https://data.oecd.org/health.htm#profile-Health%20status). Add income inequality (1% vs. 99%) and income stagnation for the Rest Of Us, with suicide and drug abuse increases and life expectancy decreases? Not in the least surprising.

Re:Cuba

[_Sharp'r_]

Right, but those stats are heavily biased by infant mortality rate definitions where the same baby who dies in Cuba and the US gets eliminated from the stats as never having been born in Cuba, but as a very short life expectancy in the US.

Creating a huge negative based on the fact that in the US they're extremely more likely to try and save severely premature babies than they are in Cuba is a bit ridiculous and renders those stats effectively meaningless.

For example:

In the U.S., very low birth weight babies are considered live births. The mortality rate of such infants – considered “unsalvageable” outside of the U.S. and therefore never alive – is extraordinarily high; up to 869 per 1,000 in the first month of life alone. This skews U.S. IM statistics.

  Since 2000, 42 of the world’s 52 surviving babies weighing less than 400 grams (0.9 lbs) were born in the U.S.

  Some of the countries reporting infant mortality rates lower than the U.S. classify babies as “stillborn” if they survive less than 24 hours whether or not such babies breathe, move, or have a beating heart at birth. But in the U.S., all infants who show signs of life at birth (take a breath, move voluntarily, have a heartbeat) are considered alive and are reflected in our IM statistics.