The sad state of U.S. life expectancy

[NewOrleans]

I literally hate it here.

Just before Christmas, federal health officials confirmed life expectancy in America had dropped for a nearly unprecedented second year in a row – down to 76 years. While countries all over the world saw life expectancy rebound during the second year of the pandemic after the arrival of vaccines, the U.S. did not. Across the lifespan, and across every demographic group, Americans die at younger ages than their counterparts in other wealthy nations.

How could this happen? In a country that prides itself on scientific excellence and innovation, and spends an incredible amount of money on health care, the population keeps dying at younger and younger ages.

The answer is varied. A big part of the difference between life and death in the U.S. and its peer countries is people dying or being killed before age 50. The "Shorter Lives" report specifically points to factors like… drug overdoses, HIV, fatal car crashes, injuries, and violence.

this article mentions  @@ health outcomes 

www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2023/03/25/1164819944/live-free-and-die-the-sad-state-of-u-s-life-expectancy

[smock]

I read this over the weekend. One stat that will stick with me: As a population, our life expectancy is TWO YEARS shorter because of the prevalence of guns.

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The article points out that after the landmark NIH report 10 years ago, there were pretty much zero policy changes. But there have been policy changes – it's just that they're making the problem worse. Making abortion illegal means higher maternal mortality rates and higher infant mortality rates. And while the article points out that Americans die younger across demographic, racial, and economic groups, we all know that systemic racism means even lower life expectancies for Black Americans.

[macmars45]

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"This is the first time in my career that I've ever seen [an increase in pediatric mortality] – it's always been declining in the United States for as long as I can remember," says the JAMA paper's lead author Steven Woolf, director emeritus of the Center on Society and Health at Virginia Commonwealth University. "Now, it's increasing at a magnitude that has not occurred at least for half a century."

I'm sure it has nothing to do with lax gun laws/mass shootings and repealing Roe. /s

[Velar Fricative]

Mar 27, 2023 10:17:23 GMT -5 NewOrleans said:

The answer is varied. A big part of the difference between life and death in the U.S. and its peer countries is people dying or being killed before age 50. The "Shorter Lives" report specifically points to factors like… drug overdoses, HIV, fatal car crashes, injuries, and violence.

www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2023/03/25/1164819944/live-free-and-die-the-sad-state-of-u-s-life-expectancy

What's amazing to me is that none of these problems alone are unique to the US, but we are just that bad with all of the above. I know the article mentioned our exceptionalism in that regard, but even even when you just read the list and really think about the impact of every single one of them on the US versus other countries that suffer from a couple of the above in extreme senses but not close to extreme with the others, it's really sobering.

I mean, just take countries like Canada and Australia, which geographically, economically and demographically are more akin to us than most (all?) other countries (i.e. lots of sprawl in those countries too which increases car dependence). They have all of the above, along with poverty and systemic racism as an underlying cause for much of each country's issues, but we are just so much worse off thanks to gun violence and worse healthcare. 

[mpm]

Mar 27, 2023 11:20:58 GMT -5 macmars45 said:

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"This is the first time in my career that I've ever seen [an increase in pediatric mortality] – it's always been declining in the United States for as long as I can remember," says the JAMA paper's lead author Steven Woolf, director emeritus of the Center on Society and Health at Virginia Commonwealth University. "Now, it's increasing at a magnitude that has not occurred at least for half a century."

I'm sure it has nothing to do with lax gun laws/mass shootings and repealing Roe. /s

Not to mention mass infecting an entire generation with a deadly multi-system virus.

[seeyalater52]

Mar 27, 2023 11:20:58 GMT -5 macmars45 said:

@@@@@@@@@

"This is the first time in my career that I've ever seen [an increase in pediatric mortality] – it's always been declining in the United States for as long as I can remember," says the JAMA paper's lead author Steven Woolf, director emeritus of the Center on Society and Health at Virginia Commonwealth University. "Now, it's increasing at a magnitude that has not occurred at least for half a century."

I'm sure it has nothing to do with lax gun laws/mass shootings and repealing Roe. /s

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Especially resonant because life expectancy at the population level is driven way more by how many young people are dying early vs how many older people are living to be even more old.

For me that makes it much more dire. It’s not so much that we are going to die on average at X vs Y, but that our kids may not live past young adulthood. That we may not live past middle age. It feels like a hellscape.

[NewOrleans]

Mar 27, 2023 21:04:09 GMT -5 seeyalater52 said:

Mar 27, 2023 11:20:58 GMT -5 macmars45 said:

@@@@@@@@@

"This is the first time in my career that I've ever seen [an increase in pediatric mortality] – it's always been declining in the United States for as long as I can remember," says the JAMA paper's lead author Steven Woolf, director emeritus of the Center on Society and Health at Virginia Commonwealth University. "Now, it's increasing at a magnitude that has not occurred at least for half a century."

I'm sure it has nothing to do with lax gun laws/mass shootings and repealing Roe. /s

@

this in part explains the conservative near-obsession with the birth rate.  See Russia, Hungary, and Melon Musk.  America being worse, though, because they know they are actively and without remorse killing young people but want fodder for capitalism. 

[chickadee77]

Mar 27, 2023 21:15:01 GMT -5 NewOrleans said:

Mar 27, 2023 21:04:09 GMT -5 seeyalater52 said:

@

this in part explains the conservative near-obsession with the birth rate.  See Russia, Hungary, and Melon Musk.  America being worse, though, because they know they are actively and without remorse killing young people but want fodder for capitalism. 

@ sort of, and maybe off-topic

I was in a discussion about WTF is the end game of forced birth, and this was pretty much the consensus. They need an expendable work force.

[sonrisa]

Mar 28, 2023 8:42:40 GMT -5 chickadee77 said:

Mar 27, 2023 21:15:01 GMT -5 NewOrleans said:

@

this in part explains the conservative near-obsession with the birth rate.  See Russia, Hungary, and Melon Musk.  America being worse, though, because they know they are actively and without remorse killing young people but want fodder for capitalism. 

@ sort of, and maybe off-topic

I was in a discussion about WTF is the end game of forced birth, and this was pretty much the consensus. They need an expendable work force.

it goes back to the evangelical obsession with birthing, adopting and indoctrinating as many kids as they can. When they hear ‘unwanted pregnancy’ they see opportunity to evangelize and add another kid for their own ever expanding families.