In 2024, the average life expectancy of an American citizen is 78.6 years. Compared to England and Wales, which has an average life expectancy of 81.3 years, the United States lags behind. The reason for this gap may surprise some people.
Avoidable Deaths Create a Gap
If you compare the life expectancy of someone in England and Wales (81.3) and someone in the US (78.6), the gap of 2.7 years may not be so noticeable. However, the difference is even greater for men at 3.4 years and a difference of 1.9 years for women. So, what causes this disparity?
Well, preventable diseases are the cause of declining life expectancy for Americans. Factors such as cardiovascular disease, drug overdoses, gun-related homicides and suicides, and motor vehicle accidents all contribute to this gap. Reports also found that COVID-19 and cancer deaths are also contributing.
Why are people so focused on comparing life expectancy in the US and the United Kingdom? However, in 1984, life expectancy in both countries was about the same – about 75 years old. As advances in medicine have been made, one can hope that life expectancy atboth countries that would develop.
Gun and Drug Overdose Deaths Are on the Rise
Dr. Joshua M. Sharfstein is director of the Bloomberg American Health Initiative (BAHI) at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. In interview noGood luckSharfstein said there is one shocking thing about the latest life expectancy statistics.
He said “gun-related homicide and suicide rates are 485.9 times higher for people under the age of 25 in the US compared to the United Kingdom and drug overdose rates are 4.5 times higher in the US for people under the age of 25. “
“The most surprising finding was that preventable causes explain the life expectancy gap,” explains Sharfstein. “It’s not so much what we’re doing wrong, but rather, we need to use the evidence we have to scale up effective public health interventions, from reducing opioid use disorders to preventing youth suicide to reverse the life expectancy gap and improve population health.”
Factors That Need To Be Considered If Life Expectancy Is To Improve
According to Sharfstein, there are several things that need attention for Americans to improve life expectancy. “There is no good reason why Americans should expect to die nearly three years earlier than their counterparts in the UK,” he said. What we should see is a reduction in certain causes of death. That is, these…
- Heart disease: There needs to be better access to hypertension treatment, access to nutritious food, and reduced sodium in the diet through policy.
- Overdose-related deaths: Increasing access to opioid-use disorder treatment, such as methadone clinics, could help reduce the number of overdose deaths we see in the US
- Gun homicides and gun-related suicides: The Second Amendment is here to stay, but there needs to be some sort of process to ensure that guns are not in unsafe hands. Handgun Licensing and Extreme Risk Protection Orders have been shown to help reduce these types of deaths.
- Youth suicide: Mental health needs more attention in the US There is a need to improve access to mental health facilities, especially in many rural areas.
- Car crashes: There are several options to help reduce traffic fatalities. Some people have proposed a visual impairment test for licensing. Other recommendations include tougher penalties for reckless driving and technology to warn drivers if they are speeding.
At the end of the day, there must be a planned solution in the United States to reduce the life expectancy gap between the US and the UK Better understanding of data and targeting solutions is a good start, but only time will tell if real change. can be done.
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