While between 2000 and 2015 life expectancy increased in the United States, this would no longer be the case. Since 2017, the country has recorded a historic deterioration, according to figures revealed by the National Center for Health Statistics published by AFP and taken back by BFMTV this Thursday, November 29. Men died on average at 76.1 years old in 2017 against 78.6 in 2014. Women at 81.1 years in 2017 against 78.9 in 2014.
A notable drop in life expectancy, which would be mainly linked to the drug overdose crisis that has affected the country since the early 2000s. “These statistics alert us and show that we lose too many Americans, too often, to preventable causes”Center for Disease Control and Prevention director Robert Redfield told AFP.
70,000 deaths from overdoses in 2017
For four years, the intensity of the drug overdose problem has accelerated. In 2017, nearly 70,000 Americans are believed to have died from it, 10% more than the previous year. A situation that Robert Anderson, head of the mortality census at the National Center for Health Statistics, compares to the peak of the HIV epidemic. With one difference: the curve had rapidly declined. The statistician thus hopes that the overdoses will follow the same path. “We are a developed country, life expectancy should increase, not decrease”, he laments.
Cocaine, methamphetamine and other psychostimulants such as MDMA have been responsible for an estimated 27,000 deaths. But the increase in overdoses is mainly linked to opiates, such as heroin, morphine or the so-called semi-synthetic opiates available on prescription but diverted. Lately, a new generation of synthetic opiates has made matters worse. Sometimes ten times more potent than heroin, a mistake in their dosage can be fatal. The death rate from these drugs increased by 45% last year.
An isolated trend
Life expectancy in the United States is thus three and a half years less than that on the other side of the border, in Canada. Of the 35 countries of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), only Iceland has seen its life expectancy drop over three years. The others have seen it increase or stagnate. However, Americans are not the only ones facing the opioid crisis. In France, this addiction is the leading cause of death by overdose.
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