In 2024, the average life expectancy of an American citizen is 78.6 years. When compared to England and Wales, which have an average life expectancy of 81.3 years, the United States is falling behind. The reason for this gap may come as a surprise to some people.
Preventable Deaths are Causing the Gap
When you compare the life expectancy of someone in England and Wales (81.3) and someone in the U.S. (78.6), the 2.7-year gap may not seem like that much. However, the difference is even bigger for men at 3.4 years and just 1.9 years difference for women. So, what’s causing this disparity?
Well, preventable diseases are to blame for the decline in life expectancy for Americans. Things like cardiovascular disease, drug overdoses, firearm-related homicides and suicides, and car accidents have all contributed to the gap. Reports have also found COVID-19 and cancer deaths to be a contributing factor as well.
Why are people so focused on comparing the life expectancy in the U.S. to that of the United Kingdom? Well, in 1984, the life expectancy in both countries was roughly the same – around 75 years old. As medical advances have been made, one would hope that the life expectancy in both countries would improve.
Firearm Deaths and Drug Overdoses on the Rise
Dr. Joshua M. Sharfstein is the director of the Bloomberg American Health Initiative (BAHI) at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. In an interview with Fortune, Sharfstein said that there is one very alarming thing about the latest life expectancy statistics.
He said that “firearm-related homicide and suicide rates are 485.9 times higher for people under age 25 in the U.S. compared to the United Kingdom and drug overdose rates are 4.5 times higher in the U.S. for people under age 25.”
“The most surprising finding was that preventable causes explain the gap in life expectancy,” Sharfstein elaborated. “It’s not so much what we’re doing wrong, but rather, we need to use the evidence we do have to scale effective public health interventions, from reducing opioid-use disorder to youth suicide prevention to reverse the life expectancy gap and improve population health.”
Things That Need Attention if Life Expectancy is to Improve
According to Sharfstein, there are several things that need to gain attention from the American people for the life expectancy to improve. “There is no good reason why Americans can expect to die nearly three years earlier than their counterparts in the U.K.,” he said. What we need to see is a reduction in specific causes of death. Namely, these…
- Cardiovascular disease: There needs to be better access to treatment for hypertension, access to nutritious foods, and reduced sodium in foods through policy.
- Overdose-related deaths: Expanding access to treatment for opioid-use disorder, such as methadone clinics, can help reduce the number of overdose deaths we see in the U.S.
- Gun homicides and gun-related suicides: The Second Amendment is here to stay, but there needs to be some kind of process to ensure the guns aren’t in unsafe hands. Firearm Purchaser Licensing and Extreme Risk Protection Orders have been shown to help reduce these kinds of deaths.
- Teen suicides: Mental health needs serious attention in the U.S. There needs to be improved access to mental health facilities, especially in more rural areas.
- Motor vehicle crashes: There are a few options to help decrease car crash deaths. Some people have suggested a hazard perception test be required for licensing. Other recommendations include stricter penalties for impaired driving and technology that alerts drivers when they are speeding.
At the end of the day, there has to be a programmatic solution in the United States to decrease the life expectancy gap between the U.S. and the U.K. Better understanding the data and pinpointing solutions is a good start, but time will only tell if real change can be implemented.
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