Why is life expectancy falling in the US?ĬOVID-19, drug overdoses, and accidental injury accounted for about two-thirds of the decline in life expectancy, according to the 2022 report. For each of us, lifespan is affected by additional factors, including health habits, disease, and genes. They're accurate for the populations they represent, but they aren't terribly accurate for a particular individual.

It's important to remember that these estimates represent average life expectancies based on hundreds of thousands of people. For women and men, life expectancy of 79.1 years and 73.2 years reflects a long-apparent, significant gap.Hispanic Americans had the next longest life expectancy, at 77.7 years. For Asian Americans, life expectancy (83.5 years) remains the longest among ethnic groups for which data is collected.Life expectancy for white Americans (76.4 years) is longer than that of Black Americans (70.8 years) until this most recent report, this gap had been narrowing.Life expectancy for American Indian and Alaska Native populations fell more than other ethnic groups at 65.2 years, the latest life expectancy estimates for these groups are similar to that of the US population in 1944.Yet life expectancy figures represent averages totaled from hundreds of thousands of people sorted into specific groups, and some groups fare much better than others: That's the largest decrease over a two-year span since the 1920s. But it fell to 77 in 2020 and dropped further, to just over 76, in 2021. With rare exceptions, life expectancy has been on the rise in the US: it was 47 years in 1900, 68 years in 1950, and by 2019 it had risen to nearly 79 years. Unfortunately, this new report shows a startling rise in death rates and decline in longevity. Our life expectancy varies depending on our current age, sex, race and ethnicity, and where in the US we live. For example, a baby born in the US in 2021 has an estimated life expectancy of about 76 years, according to the latest report from the National Center for Health Statistics. Perhaps the closest thing a healthy person has to gauge longevity is life expectancy. My wife likes to say it'd be helpful if everyone knew their 'expiration date' - as in the date you die.

Life expectancy in us