Life Expectancy for White Americans Declines

African-American men gained 0.4 year of life expectancy in 2014, to 72.2 years

Source: WSJ

By Betsy McKay

April 20, 2016

Life expectancy fell for the U.S. white population in 2014 and remained flat for all population groups combined, according to data released Wednesday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, showing how increases in death rates from suicides, drug overdoses and related causes are threatening an important measure of health and prosperity.

The number of years a white American born in 2014 could be expected to live fell to 78.8 years from 78.9 years the year before, according to the CDC. The change was driven largely by women.

Non-Hispanic white women live longer than men and African-Americans of both sexes in the U.S., with a life expectancy at birth of 81.1 years in 2014, according to the CDC. That is a slight decline from 2013, when it was 81.2 years, and the second drop for this group since 2008, when it fell to 80.7 from 80.8 in the previous year. “Basically, we’re back to where it was in 2009,” said Elizabeth Arias, the author of the report, in an interview.

Life expectancy for non-Hispanic white men, at 76.5 years, also fell last year, but by a small amount that isn’t visible due to rounding, Dr. Arias said.

Such reversals, even small ones, are unusual for wealthy nations, where people tend to live longer with each successive generation, as health care and public safety improve and the standard of living rises.

In the U.S., life expectancy overall has been stagnant at 78.8 years since 2012, remaining below that of several European countries, Canada, Australia and Japan. The stagnation follows decades of steady gains in the U.S., from 69.7 years overall in 1960 to 76.8 years in 2000 and 78.7 years in 2010.

“It’s a wake-up call,” said Ali Mokdad, a professor of global health at the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington, which has analyzed U.S. county mortality data.

Still, there were improvements for some groups: African-American men gained 0.4 year of life expectancy in 2014, to 72.2 years.

There have been signs for years that health and socioeconomic problems might be chipping away at improvements in longevity for parts of the U.S. population. In 2008, the IHME reported that life expectancy had stagnated or declined for about 4% of men and 19% of women in the U.S. in the 1980s and 1990s. The report cited diseases related to smoking, high blood pressure and obesity as contributors and noted wide disparities in life expectancy between poor and wealthy U.S. counties.

Now, deaths from suicide, drug overdoses and similar causes appear to be playing a bigger role. Research published in November showed that white middle-aged Americans-both men and women-have been dying at a rising rate since the beginning of this century, due in large part to suicide, alcohol abuse and chronic liver diseases.

In 2014, increases in the number of deaths from suicide, alcohol or drug overdoses offset declines in deaths for both white men and women from cancer, heart disease and other major chronic killers, Dr. Arias said. The increases were higher for white women, she said. A rise in deaths from alcoholic liver disease or other forms of chronic liver diseases also affected life expectancy for white women, she said. The CDC report is based on data derived from death certificates.

Women have also been affected by picking up unhealthy habits like smoking and binge drinking later than men, Dr. Mokdad said. The incidence rate of lung cancer has been declining since the mid-1980s in men but only since the mid-2000s in women, according to the American Cancer Society.

U.S. women are expected to outlive men overall by 4.8 years.