Americans’ Life Expectancy Drops For Third Year In Row, Signaling There’s ‘Something Terribly Wrong’ Going On
Researchers say the grim new reality isn't just limited to rural deaths of despair, but rather the numbers reflect that many different people living in all areas of the U.S. are struggling. “We need to look at root causes,” said Dr. Steven Woolf, the author's lead study. “Something changed in the 1980s, which is when the growth in our life expectancy began to slow down compared to other wealthy nations.”
The New York Times:
It’s Not Just Poor White People Driving A Decline In Life Expectancy
As the life expectancy of Americans has declined over a period of three years — a drop driven by higher death rates among people in the prime of life — the focus has been on the plight of white Americans in rural areas who were dying from so-called deaths of despair: drug overdoses, alcoholism and suicide. But a new analysis of more than a half-century of federal mortality data, published on Tuesday in JAMA, found that the increased death rates among people in midlife extended to all racial and ethnic groups, and to suburbs and cities. (Kolata and Tavernise, 11/26)
The Washington Post:
U.S. Life Expectancy: Americans Are Dying Young At Alarming Rates
Despite spending more on health care than any other country, the United States has seen increasing mortality and falling life expectancy for people age 25 to 64, who should be in the prime of their lives. In contrast, other wealthy nations have generally experienced continued progress in extending longevity. Although earlier research emphasized rising mortality among non-Hispanic whites in the United States, the broad trend detailed in this study cuts across gender, racial and ethnic lines. By age group, the highest relative jump in death rates from 2010 to 2017 — 29 percent — has been among people age 25 to 34. (Achenbach, 11/26)
Los Angeles Times:
Suicides, Overdoses, Other 'Deaths Of Despair' Fuel Drop In U.S. Life Expectancy
In an editorial accompanying the new report, a trio of public health leaders said the study’s insight into years of cumulative threats to the nation’s health “represents a call to action.” If medical professionals and public health experts fail to forge partnerships with social, political, religious and economic leaders to reverse the current trends, “the nation risks life expectancy continuing downward in future years to become a troubling new norm,” wrote Harvard public health professors Dr. Howard K. Koh, John J. Park and Dr. Anand K. Parekh of the Bipartisan Policy Center in Washington, D.C. (Healy, 11/26)
Meanwhile —
The New York Times:
Fertility Rate In U.S. Hit A Record Low In 2018
The fertility rate in the United States fell in 2018 for the fourth straight year, extending a steep decline in births that began in 2008 with the Great Recession, the federal government said on Wednesday. There were 59.1 births for every 1,000 women of childbearing age in the country last year, a record low, according to the National Center for Health Statistics. The rate was down by 2 percent from the previous year, and has fallen by about 15 percent since 2007. (Tavernise, 11/27)
