s one of the world’s superpowers, you would think that the lifespan of the average American would be getting longer. Unfortunately, according to a recent study, it turns out that life expectancy in the United States is instead the only wealthy country in the world where the trend is worryingly moving in the opposite direction.
From 1959 until 2014, life expectancy in America grew to some degree every single year.
This is what you would expect from one of the richest and most developed nations on earth, but in the last few years, the figures have not been in line with how reality should be playing out.
Steven Woolf puts it:
“AMERICANS OPERATE UNDER A LOT OF MISCONCEPTIONS ABOUT HOW SUPERIOR WE ARE IN MANY FACETS OF OUR LIVES AND THIS IS NOT ONE OF THEM. WE MAY THINK WE HAVE THE BEST MEDICAL CARE IN THE WORLD AND THE HIGHEST LIFE EXPECTANCY BUT THAT’S NOT THE CASE.”Steven Woolf, Study’s Lead Author
The Figures Behind the Life Expectancy Decline
In 2014, the average life expectancy of an American citizen was 78.9 years. A pretty healthy number that placed the United States near the top of the list when it came to life expectancy worldwide.
In the last few years, however, this number has started to decrease year by year so that the life expectancy rate was down to 78.6 in 2017.
It’s possible that in the years between the study being completed and now that this rate has improved. The truth of the matter is that it is more likely to have continued dropping.
With the US being the biggest senders in the world on health care per capita, this is definitely not the kind of trend that we should be seeing.
Even more worrying, the age group which saw the highest increase in mortality rates over the course of the study was adults of 25 to 64 years old. Hardly old people in the modern world by any stretch of the imagination, yet this entire age range saw a 6% increase in its mortality rate.
In the 1960s, the US-led the way when it came to life expectancy. Today, the US is dead bottom amongst countries with a similar GDP. And somewhere around the mid-40s on a global scale. This places the US life expectancy rate at around the same as those people living in Lebanon, Cuba, and Chile; countries that have much lower GDPs than the US.
Root Causes
It appears that there is no single reason for this concerning the drop in life expectancy, but the study did produce a number of shocking figures in relation to some of the reasons why we are seeing these results, particularly in the 25 to 64 category.
The most frightening revelation is the massive rise in the number of people who are dying from overdoses. Between 1999 and 2017, fatal drug overdoses for those people in this age category increased by a massive 386.5%.
Obesity also played a big role in the increased mortality rate in this age group. A jump of 114% suggests that people are eating much less healthily than in the past and this is being reflected in this surge in obesity-related deaths.
More Reasons
Alcoholism was also a key factor. Alcohol-related deaths rose 157% for people between the ages of 25 and 34. A figure that when looked at next to the massive rise in drug overdoses which suggests that a big section of society is having real and very serious substance abuse issues.
Suicide is also an area where significant increases were noted. In the 25 to 64 age category, the rise was 38.3%. For those in the 55 to 64 age range, this figure jumped to 55.9%.
The scariest thing about these figures is that they suggest a whole generation of people in the prime of their lives are being left behind by society and succumbing to poor diet, drug abuse, and mental health issues.
With such stressful times now overwhelming the global consciousness with the Coronavirus, these already vulnerable people could easily find themselves getting left even further behind.
