County mirrors nation as life expectancy falls

Drug overdoses and suicides continue to rise

Suicides and drug overdoses remain high in Allegheny County — as in the country as a whole — and that pushes life expectancy down, a new report says.

A baby born last year in the U.S. is expected to live about 78.6 years, 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.

For decades, U.S. life expectancy was on the upswing, rising a few months nearly every year. Now it’s trending the other way.

According to a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report released Wednesday, flu deaths, drug overdoses and suicides increased the number of deaths in the U.S. last year, causing a decrease in overall life expectancy for males, from 76.2 to 76.1. Women’s rates were unchanged. Allegheny County numbers trended with or surpassed the national figures.

While the top 10 causes of death across the U.S. didn’t change — heart disease and cancer still lead the list — death rates for seven of the causes increased, among them flu and pneumonia deaths by 5.9 percent; unintentional injuries, which includes drug overdoses, by 4.2 percent; and suicide by 3.7 percent. The death rate for cancer actually decreased by 2.1 percent and remained about the same for heart and kidney diseases.

“What we’ve seen in this country is the impact of diseases of despair, and our county is not immune from that,” said Karen Hacker, director of the Allegheny County Health Department.

In 2017, drug overdoses in the U.S. accounted for 70,237 deaths — a 9.6 percent increase from 2016.

According to CDC data, Pennsylvania ranks third in the nation for drug overdose deaths — 44.3 per 100,000 people. States at he low end include Nebraska, at 8.1 per 100,000. Allegheny County figures show a steady and sharp increase from 2014 to 2017.

“If you think about just between 2015 and 2017, we lost almost 2,000 people in our county from opioid overdoses. It’s just heartbreaking,” Dr. Hacker said by phone Thursday from the Bloomberg American Health Summit in Washington, D.C., where the CDC report was being discussed.

The majority of those deaths affected white men between the ages of 25 and 54.

However, Dr. Hacker said the county is on pace to see a downward trend in drug overdose deaths in 2018, though the numbers are not yet available. She attributes any decrease to surveying the data and making naloxone, the opioid overdose reversal drug, available.

Allegheny County’s suicide rate, which has risen 66 percent over the past eight years, also disproportionately affects white males — predominately between the ages 35 to 54, according to county data. Last year, 235 people died from suicide in the county. Between 2008 and 2011, that number never left the range of 165 to 169.

An Allegheny County Department of Human Services report that analyzed suicides from 2002 through 2014 found that widowed men have a disproportionately high rate of suicide and that firearms play a large role.

A DHS representative could not be reached for comment.

While an increase in flu deaths was seen nationwide — as well as in the state and county — Dr. Hacker said that to say flu deaths are increasing locally would be a mischaracterization.

“Each season, we never know how effective the flu vaccine is going to be for the particular strains,” she said.

In the 2017 to 2018 flu season, 31 county residents died from the illness, up from just nine the previous year.

“Often the strain that appears in one year, you’ll be able to cover it the next year,” she said. “The challenge of course if you get strain migration or mutation. Our mantra has been regardless, you should get a flu shot. Most of the deaths from flu are folks who have other chronic conditions. We urge people to get a vaccine not only to protect themselves but to protect their loved ones.”

The flu hit hard statewide as well last year, said Nate Wardle, press secretary for the Pennsylvania Department of Health.

“The strain of the flu that was prevalent, the H3N2, is particularly severe, primarily in senior citizens,” he said.

Of the 258 influenza-associated deaths in Pennsylvania last year, 204 occurred in the age 65 and older population.