Confronting the Rise and Fall of US Life Expectancy

摘要

The study by Woolf and Schoomaker1 examined mortality rates (all-cause and cause-specific) over nearly 6 decades—nationally, as well as across 9 US Census divisions, 50 states, and rural and urban counties—and related them to life expectancy.1 The analysis has a special focus on midlife adults (aged 25-64 years). Overall, in contrast to most peer nations (that generally had rising life expectancy), year-to-year (annual percent change [APC]) change in US life expectancy increased, stalled, and then declined (ie, reversed or “retrogressed”) leading to excess deaths. Specifically, the study results show that life expectancy rose from a baseline in 1959 (69.9 years), increased fastest in the 1970s, advanced more slowly in the 1980s, peaked in 2014, and declined annually from 2014-2017 (78.9 years to 78.6).2 Of all age groups, midlife adults experienced the largest increase in age-adjusted all-cause mortality rates from 2010- 2017, at 6%.