Suicides and drug overdose bring down U.S. life expectancy
Drug overdose deaths in the United States have gone up by 70,000 in 2017, a climb of almost 10 percent, according to new U.S. govt statistics.
Suicide rates also went up by 3.7 percent. Combined, these two causes of untimely death lowered U.S. life expectancy for the second year in a row, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported.
“The latest CDC data show that the U.S. life expectancy has declined over the past few years. Tragically, this troubling trend is largely driven by deaths from drug overdose and suicide,” said CDC Director Dr. Robert Redfield in a statement.
For decades, U.S. life expectancy was going up by few months nearly every year. Now it’s going down: It went down in 2015, stayed level in 2016, and declined again last year
“These sobering statistics are a wakeup call that we are losing too many Americans, too early and too often, to conditions that are preventable.”
The average life expectancy for Americans was 78.6 years in 2017, a drop of 0.1 year. That may not seem like much, but usually, life expectancy goes up by a little each year. If it goes down, it means people are dying at younger ages.
For comparison, according to the latest WHO data published in 2018 life expectancy in India is: Male 67.4, female 70.3 and total life expectancy is 68.8 which gives India a World Life Expectancy ranking of 125. The average life expectancy in Kerala stands at 74.9 years, followed by Delhi at 73.2 years.
Life expectancy in India has increased by more than 10 years in the past 20 years. However, life expectancy in India still falls short of most developed and developing nation.
The suicide death rate last year was the highest in at least 50 years, according to U.S. government records. There were more than 47,000 suicides, up from a little under 45,000 the year before.
For decades, U.S. life expectancy was going up by few months nearly every year. Now it’s going down: It went down in 2015, stayed level in 2016, and declined again last year, the CDC said.
The CDC also said:
- A baby born last year in the U.S. is expected to live about 78 years and 7 months, on average. An American born in 2015 or 2016 was expected to live about a month longer, and one born in 2014 about two months longer than that.
- The suicide rate was 14 deaths per 100,000 people. That’s the highest since at least 1975.
- The percentage of suicides due to drug overdose has been inching downward.
- Deaths from flu and pneumonia rose by about 6%. The 2017-2018 flu season was one of the worst in more than a decade, and some of the deaths from early in that season appeared in the new death dates.
- West Virginia was once again the state with the highest rate of drug overdose deaths. The CDC did not release state rates for suicides.
- Death rates for heroin, methadone and prescription opioid painkillers were flat. But deaths from the powerful painkiller fentanyl and its close opioid cousins continued to soar in 2017.
- The CDC did not discuss 2017 gun deaths in the reports released Thursday. But earlier CDC reports noted increase rates of suicide by gun and by suffocation or hanging.
