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Suicides and drug overdoses increased the number of deaths in the United States last year and led to a steady decline in the expected life of Americans.
Overall, there were more than 2.8 million deaths in the United States in 2017, nearly 70,000 more than the year before, the Center for Disease Control and Prevention reported on Thursday. This is the largest number of deaths in a year since the government began counting more than a century ago.
This increase partly reflects the growth and aging of the country's population. But it is deaths among younger age groups – especially middle-aged people – that have had the biggest impact on calculating life expectancy, experts said.
"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.
Last year, the suicide rate was the highest for at least 50 years, according to US government records. There were more than 47,000 suicides, compared to just under 45,000 the year before.
A general decline
For decades, life expectancy in the United States was on the rise, 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.
The life expectancy of the nation is usually the longest since the late 1910s, when World War I and the worst influenza pandemic in modern history have killed nearly a million people. # 39; Americans. The life expectancy in 1918 was 39 years old.
Apart from that, "we have never seen anything like it," said Robert Anderson, who oversees the CDC's death statistics.
Of the top 10 leading causes of death in the country, only the cancer death rate decreased in 2017. Seven more have seen an increase – suicide, stroke, diabetes, Alzheimer's, influenza / pneumonia, chronic lower respiratory diseases and injuries unintentional.
An underlying factor is that the death rate from heart disease – the country's number one killer – has stopped falling. In past years, the decline in the number of deaths from heart disease was enough to offset the rise in some other types of deaths, but not longer, Anderson said.
(CDC figures change sometimes.) This week, CDC officials said they reviewed their estimate of life expectancy for 2016 after receiving additional data.)
What's motivating her?
CDC officials have not speculated on the delay in life expectancy, but Dr. William Dietz, a specialist in disease prevention at George Washington University, sees a sense of hopelessness.
The financial struggles, growing income gap and political divisions are casting a veil on many Americans, he suggested. "I really believe that people are more and more desperate and that leads to drug use, potentially suicide," he said.
The number of drug overdose deaths has also continued to increase, surpassing 70,000 last year, at the heart of the most lethal drug overdose epidemic in the history of the United States. . The death rate increased by 10% over the previous year, less than the 21% jump observed between 2016 and 2017.
This is not a reason to celebrate, said Dr. John Rowe, professor of health and aging policy at Columbia University.
"Maybe it's starting to slow down, but it's not back yet," Rowe said. "I think it will take several years."
Accidental drug overdoses account for more than one-third of unintentional injury deaths, and intentional drug overdoses make up about one-tenth of suicides, said Dr. Holly Hedegaard, CDC's Injury Researcher.
OTHER CONCLUSIONS
The CDC figures are based primarily on a review of death certificates for 2017. Life expectancy is based on current trends in mortality and other factors.
The agency also said:
– A baby born last year in the United States should live about 78 years and 7 months on average. An American born in 2015 or 2016 had to live about a month longer, and another born in 2014 about two months longer than that.
The suicide rate was 14 deaths per 100,000 population. This is the highest since at least 1975.
– The percentage of suicides due to a drug overdose has slightly decreased.
Deaths due to influenza and pneumonia increased by about 6%. The 2017-2018 influenza season was one of the worst in more than a decade and some of the deaths that occurred earlier this season appeared in the new dates of death.
-West Virginia was once again the state with the highest rate of drug overdose deaths. The CDC has not released state rates for suicides.
Mortality rates for heroin, methadone and prescription opioid analgesics were stable. But fentanyl, a powerful painkiller, and his close opioid cousins continued to die in 2017.
The CDC did not talk about gun death in 2017 in reports released Thursday. However, previous reports from the CDC have noted an increase in suicide rates by firearm and suffocation or hanging.
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AP video journalist Federica Narancio contributed to this report from Washington, D.C.
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