The life expectancy in the United States has stopped decreasing for the first time in four years, according to two new reports from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Center for Health Statistics. Life expectancy in the United States in 2018 was 78.7 years, an increase of 0.1 year from the life expectancy of 78.6 years in 2017.
These encouraging new stats are in part due to the number of fatal drug overdoses declining, falling from 70,237 in 2017 to 67,367 in 2018, the first such decline in decades, according to NCHS reports.
“That decrease in mortality from drug overdose definitely contributed to the increase in life expectancy,” explained study author Kenneth Kochanek, a researcher at the NCHS in Hyattsville, Maryland.
According to data from the National Vital Statistics System, heart disease, cancer, unintentional injuries, such as drug overdose deaths and car accidents, chronic lower respiratory diseases, stroke, Alzheimer’s disease, diabetes, flu and pneumonia, kidney disease and suicide were the top ten leading causes of death in the country.
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