Life Expectancy Falls Again...but that Headline might Make Sound Worse than it is?

Life Expectancy Falls Again...but that Headline might Make Sound Worse than it is?

US Life Expectancy Falls Further, reads an article in Today's Wall Street Journal. That sounds most ominous, isn't life expectancy supposed to be going up these days with modern technology?

"Life expectancy for Americans fell again last year, despite growing recognition of the problems driving the decline and federal and local funds invested in stemming them....Economists and public-health experts consider life expectancy to be an important measure of a nation’s prosperity. "

So what are the Problems?

"As drug and suicide mortality has risen, deaths from heart disease, the nation’s leading killer, went down only slightly, failing to offset the increases in mortality from other causes and prolonging another worrisome trend. "  So the article seems to be saying that Suicide and Drug Addiction are increasing and this is horrible.

"Drug-overdose deaths skyrocketed between 2015 and 2017, particularly for adults between ages 25 and 54."  Therefore it seems that drugs and suicide are starting to take a real toll, real is sad.

Downward Downward:

However when you dig farther into the numbers (and the charts) you will notice that the downward trend is ever so slightly downward.

"The U.S. has lost three-tenths of a year in life expectancy since 2014, a stunning reversal for a developed nation"  3/10s?   While I would rather the number continue to go up, this seems more like a leveling off to me.

I am not statistician, but this is not a downward ski slope.  More of a cross country trail.  "“It doesn’t seem like a lot, but in terms of human cost you’ve got a lot of life that’s not being lived.”  

This brings me to think that this is more of a leveling off and less of s true downward trend.

Conclusion:

Of course that may be easy to say when you have not lost a loved one to suicide or drugs.  But I am attempting to stick to the numbers here. Although I would much rather see longevity continue to go up, perhaps we are at a point in this country when modern technologies are starting to do more good than harm.  Those modern technologies include guns and drugs.

It is sad, super sad... but it seems to me that longevity has leveled off.

Technology is a two way street!

Now we need to find new ways to lengthen American lives.