[ad_1]
In the United States, life expectancy continued to decline from 2014, a historic deterioration due mainly to the drug overdose crisis, but also to the increase in the number of suicides , according to health statistics released Thursday.
"This is the first time we have seen a downward trend since the great flu epidemic of 1918," AFP Robert Anderson, National Center Mortality Statistics Officer, told AFP. health statistics. . Anderson, however, pointed out that the decline was much stronger in 1918.
In 2017, life expectancy at birth was 76.1 years for men and 81.1 years for women. The average of the population was 78.6 years, compared to 78.9 years in 2014.
Moreover, they are three and a half years younger than in Canada, on the other side of the border and also affected by overdoses
"These statistics alert us and show that we are losing very soon many Americans for preventable causes," said the director of Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Robert Redfield.
The scourge of drug overdose began in the early 2000s and increased in intensity four years ago
In 2017, about 70,000 Americans died of drug overdose, an increase of 10% over In 2016.
In terms of death Anderson compared this situation with the rise of the HIV epidemic but with one difference: that it quickly declined. The statistician expects overdoses to follow the same path. "We are a developed country, the life expectancy must increase and not decrease," he said.
Of the 35 OECD countries, only Iceland has recently experienced a decrease in life expectancy, according to figures until 2016. The other places have either increased , be stagnated.
Suicides also continued to increase in 2017 in the United States, reaching 47,000 deaths. Since 1999, the suicide rate has increased by 33%.
"We have a lot of work to do to reverse these trends," said Democratic MP Bill Foster.
– Opioids –
There are two categories of overdose. One for non-opioid drugs, such as cocaine and methamphetamine, and another for psychostimulants, for which about 27,000 people died.
But the increase is due largely to the second category: opiates.
It includes heroin, morphine, and semi-synthetic opiates, such as oxycodone, a prescription pain reliever sold on the black market, with the help of doctors and complicit labs who claim to ignore the problem and who are usually the starting point Addiction.
Lately, most deaths are due to a new generation of drugs: synthetic opiates, such as fentanyl, dozens of times more potent than heroin, with which the slightest dose error can be fatal. . Some 28,000 Americans died of fentanyl or similar drugs in 2017.
"The opioid market is now completely dominated by fentanyl," Joshua Sharfstein, a former Maryland health worker at the Washington Post, told Washington Post today. 39; university. Johns Hopkins
The number of deaths due to synthetic opiates doubled between 2015 and 2016. It increased by 45% last year.
But the figures for 2017 reveal a detail that gives hope for a relative hope: the number of deaths. Overdoses continue to grow, but at a slower pace.
Preliminary data for 2018 even suggest that the crisis peaked earlier this year. "But it's hard to say," because there's only data for a few months, said Robert Anderson, a cautious man.
In Staten Island, New York, Dr. Harshal Kirane, director of the addiction treatment department, avoids hasty conclusions. "It is encouraging to see that the trajectory is curved, no doubt," he told AFP. "But 70,000 dead, it's still hard to digest."
Not all countries are equally affected by this scourge. Central states, from Texas to South Dakota, are relatively safe.
The crisis is acute in New England, in the northeast corner, where overdose deaths account for more than a quarter of organ donations, which is comparable to road accidents.
She is also very strong in two states. from the old industrial belt (Ohio and Pennsylvania) and especially from the very poor West Virginia, which ranks first with the sad figure of 58 deaths per 100,000 inhabitants, against a national average of 22 people.
Source link
