
The decline in U.S. life expectancy is unlike anything we've seen in a century - Jerry2
https://www.popsci.com/life-expectancy-declining
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andrewem
This thread by Atul Gawande, a doctor, analyzes recent death data from
Massachusetts. Several interesting notes, especially this: "The starkest
differences in death rates are not by race or gender, but by level of
education. People with only a high school degree or less have a _350%_ higher
annual rate of death than others. That's not a typo."

[https://www.twitter.com/atul_gawande/status/1078646188344336...](https://www.twitter.com/atul_gawande/status/1078646188344336384)

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lykr0n
Damn. I have to think it's because the higher level of education required by a
rising percentage of jobs is boxing less educated people into more demanding,
less engaging, and higher stress jobs that are disappearing.

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pjc50
There was a developed country in the late 20th century which suffered a huge
decline in life expectancy: Russia, after the collapse of the Soviet Union.

[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1116380/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1116380/)
Life expectancy falls to 58: "“What we are arguing,” said Omar Noman, an
economist for the development fund and one of the report’s contributors, “is
that the transition to market economies [in the region] is the biggest …
killer we have seen in the 20th century, if you take out famines and wars"

[https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/7mfr15/why_d...](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/7mfr15/why_did_russian_life_expectancy_drop_massively_in/)
: Reddit thread with sources

While the situation is not nearly on the same scale, perhaps there are some
lessons to be drawn in comparison.

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thereisnospork
Ironically, can't a lot of the mortality increase be attributed to the
tightening of prescription opiate supply? A well intentioned measure seems to
be resulting in a fair amount of people dying. Maybe the lesser evil is to
just let people dope themselves up with pharmaceutical-grade controls on
purity/dosage?

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jmull
> ...can't a lot of the mortality increase be attributed to the tightening of
> prescription opiate supply?

How do you figure that?

To the contrary, this article lists drug overdoses as one of the three main
causes for the decrease in life expectancy. Wouldn't increasing the
availability of opioids increase overdoses?

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bb88
Prescription drugs on the black market are typically more expensive than the
cheaper but deadlier alternative, heroin.

When people can't afford/obtain the oxycontin anymore many will go to heroin.

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paulpauper
_A new report from the Centers for Disease Control shows that a small decrease
in life expectancy, from 78.7 to 78.6 years, is part of a continuing trend.
Even as we make progress treating cancer, heart disease, and stroke—three of
the biggest killers—we’re losing ground on other fronts and have been since
2014. That makes this continuous decline unlike anything we 've seen since
World War I and the Spanish influenza, which both happened between 1915 and
1918._

Had to re-read 3x times to make sure I was not misreading. Just .1 year? Isn't
that within the margin of error or just an expected fluctuation within a much
longer trend / hardly anything to lose sleep over, IMHO.

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RickJWagner
Suicide, drug overdose, and liver disease. It seems like an ounce of
prevention can help stem those.

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sdinsn
...The decline was 0.1 of a year.

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drpgq
I wonder if this has happened in Canada too. We certainly have a big opioid
problem.

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nasalgoat
Yes, this was reported here as well.

[https://www.cbc.ca/news/health/life-expectancy-canada-
decrea...](https://www.cbc.ca/news/health/life-expectancy-canada-decrease-
opioid-crisis-1.4874651)

