{"id":23173,"date":"2015-12-09T09:07:49","date_gmt":"2015-12-09T17:07:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spijue.wpengine.com\/news\/us-life-expectancy-flat-for-third-straight-year\/"},"modified":"2015-12-09T09:07:49","modified_gmt":"2015-12-09T17:07:49","slug":"us-life-expectancy-flat-for-third-straight-year","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/news\/us-life-expectancy-flat-for-third-straight-year\/","title":{"rendered":"US life expectancy flat for third- straight year"},"content":{"rendered":"

NEW YORK<\/strong> \u2014 Life expectancy in the United States has stalled for three straight years, the government announced Wednesday.<\/p>\n

A child born last year can expect to make it to 78 years and 9\u00bd months \u2014 the same prediction made for the previous two years.<\/p>\n

In most of the years since World War II, life expectancy in the U.S. has inched up \u2014 thanks largely to medical advances, public health campaigns and better nutrition and education. The last time it was stuck for three years was in the mid-1980s.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not clear why life expectancy has been flat lately, but suicides and fatal drug overdoses probably are playing a role, experts believe.<\/p>\n

Some researchers have wondered if U.S. life expectancy will peak, due to the nation\u2019s obesity problem and other factors. But there\u2019s no evidence that\u2019s happening now, said Robert Anderson of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.<\/p>\n

S. Jay Olshansky, a public health professor at the University of Illinois-Chicago, agreed.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s too early to tell. Three years does not a trend make,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The United States ranks below nearly 40 other countries in life expectancy, according to the World Bank. Japan and Iceland are at the top of that list, at more than 83 years.<\/p>\n

U.S. health officials come up with the life expectancy figure each year by looking at how old people were when they died and the cause of death. They use statistical modeling to predict how long people born today will live if current trends continue.<\/p>\n

The CDC report is based on all the 2014 death certificates. There were about 2.6 million deaths, or about 29,000 more than the previous year. The increase reflects the nation\u2019s growing and aging population.<\/p>\n

Other findings:<\/p>\n

\u2022 Infant mortality dropped again slightly, to a record low of 5.8 per 1,000 births.<\/p>\n

\u2022 The 10 top causes of death remained the same: heart disease, cancer, respiratory diseases like emphysema and bronchitis, accidents and unintentional injuries, stroke, Alzheimer\u2019s disease, diabetes, flu and pneumonia, kidney disease and suicide.<\/p>\n

\u2022 Death rates fell significantly for five causes, including the top two \u2014 heart disease and cancer.<\/p>\n

\u2022 The largest increase was in Alzheimer\u2019s disease \u2014 8 percent.<\/p>\n

\u2022 Suicides and unintentional injuries \u2014 a category that includes falls, traffic accidents and drug overdoses \u2014 each went up by about 3 percent.<\/p>\n

Overdoses are driving up those death rates, said Ian Rockett, a West Virginia University researcher who studies overdoses and suicides.<\/p>\n

Drug overdose deaths in the U.S. have been rising for more than 20 years \u2014 primarily from the abuse of powerful prescription painkillers like Vicodin and OxyContin. <\/p>\n

Heroin-related deaths \u2014 though far less common than painkiller deaths \u2014 have also recently spiked.<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

Online:<\/p>\n

CDC report: http:\/\/www.cdc.gov\/nchs\/<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

NEW YORK \u2014 Life expectancy in the United States has stalled for three straight years, the government announced Wednesday. A child born last year can expect to make it to 78 years and 9\u00bd months \u2014 the same prediction made for the previous two years. In most of the years since World War II, life […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":107,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":4,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[65],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-23173","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-nation-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23173","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/107"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23173"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23173\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23173"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23173"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23173"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=23173"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}