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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.
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.
Long working hours, stress due to stupid societal expectations, bullying via social media, poor health care unless you have a cush job ... they all have consequences.
In Russia, liver cirrhosis and lung cancer are natural causes.
The enormous difference between age-adjusted death rate of Whites and Hispanics is surprising.
White males are dying at a 40% higher rate than Hispanics (age adjusted of course.)
This is about the same as the gender gap in death rate, which starts from birth. Males are much more likely to die in cots, or as toddlers in pools.
Is the racial gap across life like that, or appearing in middle age from diet-related disease?
Do the English-speaking children and grandchildren of Hispanic immigrants maintain that advantage if they live a mainstream American lifestyle?
i.e. nature or nurture?
You either live long enough to go bankrupt from the out of control US healthcare system
or you die young without ever having to experience the horrors of how this country treats
its elderly.
Personally, I think I would prefer the latter over the former.
( and I'm closer in age to the latter than the former )
Preventative healthcare is the key to a long life. Stopping stuff early keeps it from killing you suddenly or having permanent effects. People with poor healthcare (or limited access because of cost) tend to skimp on preventative healthcare, with corresponding effects on life expectancy. Why does the country with the most expensive healthcare on earth have the worst healthcare in the G20? Because dying patients are good for business.
There's lots of cancer cures now, cancer is no longer the absolute death sentence it once was. Heart disease? Just ask Dick Cheney if they can fix it.... yeh they can. You blamed immigrants bringing "untreatable contagious conditions". What disease exactly? "heart disease"?? "Suicide"?
Lots of cures for lots of diseases, but healthcare has been de-funded, and large parts of Obamacare have been undermined, and you cannot afford it because you are old and have existing preconditions.
Lots of cures for lots of diseases, BUT NOT FOR YOU.
Of the two countries with the longest lifespans:
Switzerland has compulsary healthcare insurance, aka Obamacare.
Japan has 70%/30 state/compulsary private insurance.
It's not immigrants that bring the problem, the Republican party is home grown. Fox News is a *domestic* propaganda outfit. I's not immigrants that defunds Obamacare.
According to the article I read, the main cause of the drop is an increase in suicide and drug overdoses among the young. Which means fewer people pumping money into the system, without much corresponding drop in the people drawing out of the system. So I'd expect the opposite results...
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
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.
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:
The party of stupid and the party of evil get together and do something both stupid and evil, then call it bipartisan.
Legalizing isn't washing your hands of it, it's merely the start of being able to truly help.
Keeping such drugs illegal is washing our hands and then using our clean hands to dig a large hole into which we place our heads so we cannot hear the screams of the damned.
If we tried what Portugal did 14 years ago, maybe we'd have similar success...
Don't forget we could still go after dealers of really dangerous stuff, it would juts make small quantities illegal.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Is a product of poor education and poor diet. The areas affected suffer both.
Poor genetic health is a factor, with urban communities typically having better genes, but that would be overwhelmed by diet and education.
America's he-man culture and lack of functioning health service (mental health is virtually absent, synthetic opium is handed out like candy by doctors to make up for it) are other major blunders.
And remember this is an average life expectancy, it's different for men and women. Men tend to live shorter lifespans. And it's male lifespans that are falling fastest.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
The middle class is dying. And the bulk of people I've worked for were unhealthy slobs who will die stupidly young.
The air pollution around Portland, OR - home of the middle class, or at least theur books - is replete with heavy metals such as mercury. And restrictions are being lifted. It will get worse.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
No matter how good your doctor is, if you cannot afford him he could be offering eternal life and you'll still croak from a preventable disease because you just can't afford it.
And with more and more people not being able to... well, what do you expect?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.