Life expectancy in the US is significantly lower than among its English-speaking peers like Australia
The US has the lowest national life expectancy among its wealthy English-speaking peers, according to a new study.
Researchers from Penn State University looked at mortality rates from 1990 to 2019 in the US, Canada, Ireland, the UK, Australia and New Zealand, and discovered that the US ranked last in terms of average life expectancy.
In the US, average life expectancy for men is 76.5, while for women it’s 81.5. In Australia, by contrast, men live five years longer than men in the US and women four years longer than women in the US.
There were clear regional differences across the US, with men and women in California and Hawaii living longer than the national average, but still not as long as Australians, whereas in the Southeast of the US, life expectancy was far below the US average. In the Southeast, men live to 69.3 years of age on average and women 72.6.
The researchers attribute the lower rates of life expectancy in the US to more young Americans dying from drug overdoses, murder, and car accidents than in other countries, and middle-aged Americans having higher rates of death from cardiovascular disease.
A recent study showed that opioid deaths alone in the US reduced life expectancy in 2022 by 0.67 years, for a total of 3.1 million lost years of life and 38 life years lost per individual death.
