
Life Expectancy at Birth by Country - rokhayakebe
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2102rank.html
======
fiatmoney
Life expectancy at birth is mainly dominated by infant mortality x birth rate
(which is part of why Africa is so abysmally low). It's much more interesting
(and pretty) to look at the 3D chart of life expectancy distributions at age
N. Unfortunately this is really only available for a subset of developed
countries, and not even really for a lot of subpopulations within them without
a lot of digging.

~~~
guard-of-terra
It doesn't always do that.

CIS countries (like Belarus, Azerbaijan and Russia) have quite low infant
mortality, and yet life expectancy is second only to Africa, from the bottom
of course.

I'm kind of surprised seeing Iran in the same basket, why?

~~~
nl
Lowering infant mortality will generally get you into the 70-80 bracket.

The countries with 80+ life expectancy are those with the best and most
available hospital systems and active program where they treat aging diseases.
That's really only happened in the last 20 years.

The USSR did very well until it collapsed, but since then life expectancy has
kind of stagnated in most of the former Soviet republics (see the Gapminder
link below)

Iran lost a statistically significant number of people during the Iran/Iraq
war of the 1980's. That's showing in the life expectancy stats.

Gapminder is good for this kind of thing (You'll need to enable Flash). Watch
Iran drop back when the war occurred:
[http://www.gapminder.org/world/#$majorMode=chart$is;shi=t;ly...](http://www.gapminder.org/world/#$majorMode=chart$is;shi=t;ly=2003;lb=f;il=t;fs=11;al=30;stl=t;st=t;nsl=t;se=t$wst;tts=C$ts;sp=5.59290322580644;ti=1898$zpv;v=0$inc_x;mmid=XCOORDS;iid=phAwcNAVuyj1jiMAkmq1iMg;by=ind$inc_y;mmid=YCOORDS;iid=tiAiXcrneZrUnnJ9dBU-
PAw;by=ind$inc_s;uniValue=8.21;iid=phAwcNAVuyj0XOoBL_n5tAQ;by=ind$inc_c;uniValue=255;gid=CATID0;by=grp$map_x;scale=log;dataMin=194;dataMax=96846$map_y;scale=lin;dataMin=1;dataMax=96$map_s;sma=50;smi=2$cd;bd=0$inds=i103_t001800,,,,;i184_t001800,,,,;i49_t001800,,,,;i218_t001800,,,),

~~~
guard-of-terra
"The USSR did very well until it collapsed"

It didn't, life expectancy actually went backwards in Russia in 1965-1985. It
stagnated for women and fell a few years for men. This is while rest of the
world increased life expectancy rapidly. You can see that in your linked
website.

A good comparsion pair is Russia-Finland. Same expectancy and GDP in 1960, and
then they begin to diverge rapidly.

~~~
nl
Hm, you are right (although in Russia/USSR it kept improving until 1970 and
then fell back - see[1] for exact numbers).

[2] claims it can be shown to be caused by alcohol abuse, and that an
aggressive anti-alcohol campaign in the mid 1980's reversed the trend just in
time for the collapse of the Soviet Union (when the campaign stopped and the
gains fell away again). It's probably that bump that confused me, as it seems
many others have said the same thing.

[1]
[http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=phAwcNAVuyj2tPLxKvvnN...](http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=phAwcNAVuyj2tPLxKvvnNPA&gid=0)

[2]
[http://www.prb.org/Publications/Articles/2000/HighDeathRateA...](http://www.prb.org/Publications/Articles/2000/HighDeathRateAmongRussianMenPredatesSovietUnionsDemise.aspx)

------
reasonattlm
For comparison, from the WHO:

[http://apps.who.int/gho/data/node.main.688](http://apps.who.int/gho/data/node.main.688)

As always I'd say that you'd have to be particularly pessimistic to believe
these numbers. To hit these numbers would require the present revolution in
capabilities in biotechnology to produce pretty much nothing of practical use.
It would require the present sea change in the aging research and broader
medical community in attitudes towards aging, the growing advocacy among
researchers to treat aging as a medical condition (e.g.
[http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4468941/](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4468941/)
), and greater funding directed specifically at the production of ways to
treat aging, all of that to go nowhere.

I don't think that is realistic. There are startups now working on ways to
repair the specific known causes of aging, forms of damage that contribute to
a wide range of age-related disease. Oisin Biotech for senescent cell
clearance, Human Rejuvenation Technologies for clearance of metabolic waste
that contributes to atherosclerosis among other conditions, Gensight for
mitochondrial DNA repair, and so forth. Is all this really going to go
nowhere, have no real impact on the present very gentle upward slope in life
expectancy?

Betting against leaps in technology progress doesn't seem a winning choice
given the past 150 years and the present environment especially.

~~~
openbsd-usr
[http://www.pipeline.corante.com/archives/2012/03/08/erooms_l...](http://www.pipeline.corante.com/archives/2012/03/08/erooms_law.php)

[http://www.vox.com/2015/3/23/8264355/research-study-
hype](http://www.vox.com/2015/3/23/8264355/research-study-hype)

[http://www.nature.com/news/registered-clinical-trials-
make-p...](http://www.nature.com/news/registered-clinical-trials-make-
positive-findings-vanish-1.18181)

There is no exponential progress in medicine. In fact, medicine is in some
ways actually regressing, in particular through growing antibiotic resistance.

Where is this evidence for leaps in medical technological progress? The
regular news stories prematurely heralding the end of some disease based
solely on some priliminary in-vitro result that likely won't ever make it to a
Phase 1 clinical trial?

I am betting that medicine will look twenty years from now largely as it does
today. It will be painful, expensive, unautomated, unscientific, and of
course, largely ineffective--just as it did twenty years before today. Had I
made this prediction in 1970, 1980, 1990, or (extrapolating 5 years into the
future) 2000, I would have been absolutely correct, so I see no reason to stop
making it.

Take care of yourself. Do not assume regenerative medicine will fix the damage
done to your body through smoking, excessive drinking, poor diet, or lack of
exercise. Even if some genuine breakthrough arrived tomorrow, it would still
take years to receive FDA approval and would likely cost a small fortune (see
Sovaldi).

~~~
nl
_There is no exponential progress in medicine. In fact, medicine is in some
ways actually regressing, in particular through growing antibiotic
resistance._

Whilst medical progress isn't exponential this comment is way too pessimistic.
Take the falling rates of mortality due to cancer[1][2].

Falling infant mortality means more people are living long enough to get
cancer. But slowly we are winning that battle too as the mortality rate shows.

 _I am betting that medicine will look twenty years from now largely as it
does today. It will be painful, expensive, unautomated, unscientific, and of
course, largely ineffective--just as it did twenty years before today. Had I
made this prediction in 1970, 1980, 1990, or (extrapolating 5 years into the
future) 2000, I would have been absolutely correct, so I see no reason to stop
making it._

It's usually a good bet to think that things will look the same in the future
as they do now. However, your 2000-to-2020 bet is utterly and completely wrong
because of the huge progress against Malaria if nothing else.

Since 2000, anti-malaria efforts have saved over 3 million lives and cut the
mortality rate by nearly 50%[3]. That's a huge, planet changing piece of
progress.

In the developed world, the HPV Cancer Vaccine is having a similar effect on
cervical cancer (one of the most common cancer types for women).

 _Even if some genuine breakthrough arrived tomorrow, it would still take
years to receive FDA approval and would likely cost a small fortune (see
Sovaldi)._

In most of the world public health systems pay for most truly effective
medications.

[1] [https://katatrepsis.files.wordpress.com/2012/10/mortality-
ov...](https://katatrepsis.files.wordpress.com/2012/10/mortality-over-
time.jpg)

[2]
[http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-CPzNroCH8h4/TwIN75xB1VI/AAAAAAAAAL...](http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-CPzNroCH8h4/TwIN75xB1VI/AAAAAAAAALE/1P_ZmlONb8c/s1600/Cancer+in+the+USA.png)

[3] [http://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/releases/2013/world-
mala...](http://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/releases/2013/world-malaria-
report-20131211/en/)

------
coldhardy
Life expectancy by career might be much more interesting and specific. Or if a
career is linked to specific diseases. I'm also curious, which state in the US
has the largest life expectancy

~~~
christianmann
Life expectancy by state:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_by_life_ex...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_by_life_expectancy)

Looks like it's Hawaii, Minnesota, Connecticut, and Colorado at the top, with
Mississippi, West Virginia, and Alabama at the bottom.

~~~
jandrewrogers
An interesting (and well-known) artifact is that Asians in the US have highest
life expectancies in the world. In addition to possibly having good genetics
for this purpose, they avoid the anomalous adverse factors in US life
expectancies (vehicular accidents and homicide) while taking advantage of the
fact that the US generally has the best average medical outcomes in the world
for the diseases that tend to kill older populations.

From a life expectancy standpoint, Asian Americans have the perfect
intersection of genetics, avoidance of injury, and medical outcomes. Given the
size of disparities in life expectancy, shifts in demographics alone would be
sufficient to explain some of the increase in life expectancy.

~~~
dilipd
Yes. Among the US States, life expectancy generally seems like this:

a) Asian American > Latino > White > African American and

b) Blue States > Red States (2012 presidential)

------
dannylandau
I'd also be interested in how the U.S breaks down by states and certain
regions, like SF or Palo Alto/Mountain View, Manhattan, Boulder, Austin,
etc... Since the U.S is very heterogeneous, it probably leads to a lot of
variability in life expectancy across different regions. The countries at the
top of the list are very homogeneous and wealthy. Wouldn't be surprised if the
top cities in terms of wealth and education exceed life expectancy of the top
country on the list -- Monaco.

------
mdpm
Wow. We're (South Africa) at the 2nd worst. That's HIV.

~~~
ak39
No, that's "HIV does not cause AIDS".

~~~
mdpm
it just /hurts/. Recently ranked as increasingly commercially competitive.
Meanwhile, we have a mean lifetime of not even 50? Those facts should be taken
together.

------
guard-of-terra
I wonder how countries get to 80 year on average given all those early cancers
and genetical diseases (also fatalities and suicides) that are surely to reap
their harvest.

This should mean that average for people who did not die prematurely is more
close to 90 years. That's scary.

Personally I'd be happy enough to live to 70, and won't be surprised to die
much earlier.

~~~
bdcravens
Which makes the US's social security system a bit insane. Somehow you're
expected to live 20-30 years off of income derived from paying into a system
for 40-50 years. (or less, given the number entering the work force in the
their late 20s or early 30s)

------
rokhayakebe
Aristotle, Socrates, Plato lived to their 60s, 70s, 80s respectively.

Granted less people are dying young now, it seems like we have been able to
extend the time we live. That is to say if you were born 400 BC and lived a
proper lifestyle you would have probably lived just as long as the guy who is
born today and lives a proper lifestyle.

~~~
pron
The main difference is not a proper lifestyle but infectious diseases that
used to drop people like flies until the discovery of antibiotics.

------
ghshephard
I'd love to see a chart of "Life Expectancy at 1 year of age" \- I suspect the
results would be significantly different.

