U.S. life expectancy drops

Aconsistent increase in life expectancy is one of society’s bedrock measures of progress. When people are living a bit longer each year it means we are eating better, exercising more, becoming more prosperous, reducing stress, facing less danger, and learning how to treat and prevent illnesses. The average life expectancy of an American has increased about 30 years since 1900.

So what does it signify when, for the first time in 55 years, the United States saw life expectancy decline for two years in a row, as it did in 2015 and 2016?

It means the country is sick, and growing sicker. It means the country is killing itself, with drug addiction and suicide its methods of choice, and that Alzheimer’s is a disease it cannot get a handle on.

The life expectancy of a baby born in 2016 declined about one month over one born in 2015, to 78 years and seven months on average. That measure had declined two months from 2014 to 2015.

The biggest reason for the sad change is an opioid epidemic that led to about two-thirds of the 63,600 drug deaths in 2016, an increase of about 20 per cent over the previous year’s record-setting tally of drug deaths. That’s a death rate that’s tripled nationally since 1999.

Another reason for the reduction in life expectancy is a rate of suicide that’s been steadily increasing for the past 30 years and left about 45,000 people dead in 2016, an absolutely staggering tally.

That so much of what is killing Americans seems to involve despair and mental illness and preventable life choices offers both hope and sadness. It’s clear the trend is reversible. But it’s also clear the U.S. has to be as committed to fighting suicide and addiction as it has been in the past toward AIDS and influenza if it is going to change that trend.