![]() “It was hard enough to fathom a 2.7 year decline over 2 years overall. “When I saw that, in the report, I just – my jaw dropped,” Anderson said. The life expectancy for this group plunged by nearly 2 years between 20 and a startling 6.6 years since 2019 – more than twice as much as it did for the total US population.Īt 65.2 years, the life expectancy for American Indians in 2021 was equal to the overall US life expectancy in 1944. The recent decline among American Indian and Alaska Native people is particularly “astounding,” Anderson said. Changes of more than a few tenths of a year have been considered substantial. ![]() “Mortality generally, mainly since the 1950s, has changed rather slowly,” Anderson said. In 2021, mortality rates due to influenza and pneumonia decreased, and if not for these “offsetting effects,” the decline in US life expectancy would have been even greater, according to the report. But these tools are not being used effectively.”Įven if expected, the scale of the decline is still extraordinary. “We have the science and the tools available to help us reverse this trend and reduce the number of overdose deaths in this country. These deaths often occur in young adults and therefore represent a tragically high number of years of life lost and devastating impact on individuals, families, and communities,” she said. “It is distressing to see a continuing negative impact of drug overdose on the life expectancy of Americans. Nora Volkow, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, also said it wasn’t surprising, but it is frustrating. And deaths from unintentional injuries – about half of which are due to drug overdose – was the second-leading cause of the decline in life expectancy.ĭr. The death rate from Covid-19 was higher in 2021 than it was in 2020, so it wasn’t particularly surprising that life expectancy would fall again, Bob Anderson, chief mortality statistician for the CDC, told CNN.Īlso, drug overdose deaths reached a record high in 2021, killing about 109,000 people. Overlapping emergencies strain the nation's public health workforce and threaten critical vaccination campaigns
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