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"This is the first time we have seen a downward trend since the great flu epidemic of 1918," says Robert Anderson, chief of mortality statistics at the US National Center for Health Statistics.
Particularly disturbing figures. Life expectancy continues to decline in the United States, a historical deterioration mainly related to the drug overdose crisis, according to data from the United States. National Center for Health Statistics American, revealed Thursday, November 29.
At birth, life expectancy was 76.1 years for men in 2017 and 81.1 years for women. The average for the entire population was 78.6 years, compared to 78.9 in 2014. This is 3.5 years less than in Canada, also affected by overdoses. Of the 35 OECD countries, only Iceland has recently seen life expectancy decline over three years. Elsewhere, it has increased or stagnated.
"This is the first time we have seen a downward trend since the great flu epidemic of 1918"says AFP Robert Anderson, head of mortality statistics at the US National Center for Health Statistics. While stating that the decline was certainly much stronger in 1918.
These statistics alert us to the fact that we are losing too many Americans too often for preventable causes.Robert Redfield, Director, Centers for Disease Control and Preventionto AFP
The scourge of drug overdoses began in the early 2000s in the United States, but its intensity has accelerated over the past four years. In 2017, about 70,000 Americans died of drug overdoses, 10% more than in 2016.
There are two categories of overdoses. Non-opioid drugs – such as cocaine, methamphetamine and other psychostimulants, including MDMA – have killed about 27,000 people in 2017. But the increase in the number of deaths by drug overdose is largely due to a second category, opiates.
This includes heroin, morphine, but also so-called semi-synthetic opiates, such as oxycodone. This painkiller is issued on prescription, but diverted on the black market, with the help of complicit doctors and laboratories who claim to ignore the problem, which is often the gateway to addiction.
Lately, the majority of the deaths came from a new generation: synthetic opiates, such as fentanyl, which is tens of times more powerful than heroin. A dosage error can be fatal. The rate of synthetic opiate deaths doubled from 2015 to 2016. Last year, it increased by 45%. This is the relative note of hope contained in the figures of 2017: the number of overdoses continues to grow, but at a pace less sustained.
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