![]() This downward trend could be reversed if we make progress in controlling the COVID-19 pandemic and opioid epidemic.Ĭan we prevent premature death and eliminate disparities in life expectancy? These are challenging, worthy goals that require individual and collective action. Still, it's striking - and disappointing - that after decades of increasing life expectancy, and at a time when researchers are rethinking aging and the limits of the lifespan, we are now seeing life expectancy fall. Other measures, such as infant mortality, maternal mortality, vaccination and cancer screening rates, and years of healthy life lived are not directly captured by reports on life expectancy. Life expectancy is only one measure of health. Lower life expectancy in southern states raises the possibility that politics, vaccination policies, pollution, climate, or other variable factors may contribute to discrepancies in life expectancy. Notably, life expectancy varies widely by state. Additionally, groups with lower life expectancy tend to have higher-risk jobs that can't be performed virtually, live in more crowded settings, and have less access to vaccination, which increases the risk of becoming sick with or dying of COVID-19. For example, those with the shortest life expectancies in the US tend to have the most poverty, face the most food insecurity, and have less or no access to healthcare, all factors that contribute to lower life expectancy. The social determinants of health likely explain a lot of these disparities.
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