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The suicide rate in the United States is at its highest point in at least 50 years, resulting in a decrease in life expectancy, according to a new study.
According to US government records, there were more than 47,000 suicides last year, compared to just under 45,000 the year before.
The number of drug overdose deaths has also continued to increase, surpbading 70,000 last year, at the heart of the most lethal drug overdose epidemic in the history of the United States. .
In total, there were more than 2.8 million deaths in the United States in 2017, nearly 70,000 more than in the previous year, the largest number of deaths in a year since the Government began counting more than a century ago, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said.
The increase partly reflects the country's growing and aging population, but it is the deaths among younger age groups – especially the middle-aged – that have had the greatest impact. on the calculation of life expectancy, said experts.
For decades, life expectancy in the United States has increased, increasing by a few months almost every year. Now, the trend is reversed: it dropped in 2015, remained stable in 2016 and fell again last year, said the CDC.
"These sobering statistics are an alarm bell: we are losing too many Americans, too early and too often, to the benefit of conditions that could be avoided," said Dr. Robert Redfield, CDC director. in a statement.
Irish independent
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