Our life expectancy in the U.S. decreased for the second year in a row in 2016 to 78.6 years. The drop looks small at first blush -0.1 years, but it's alarming. Life expectancy in the United States is lower than in most other OECD countries and the gap is getting wider--we're dying earlier in the U.S. while people in other countries are living longer. I could not do as good a job of explaining why as Bill Gardner did in this post, so I recommend you read his explanation.
- Heart Disease
- Cancer
- Accidents
- Chronic lower respiratory disease
- Stroke
- Alzheimer's
- Diabetes
- Flu and pneumonia
- Kidney disease
- Suicide
The rate of death decreased for seven of these 10, but increased for accidents, Alzheimer's and suicide. We also know drug overdose deaths rose an appalling 21% from 2015 to 2016.
