Covid-19 and drug overdose deaths drive U.S. life expectancy to a 25-year low

[beijingwalker]

Covid-19 and drug overdose deaths drive U.S. life expectancy to a 25-year low​

A baby born in 2021 can expect to live 76.4 years, down from 78.8 in 2019.

By KRISTA MAHR

12/22/2022 12:02 AM EST

The Covid-19 pandemic has had “a domino effect,” said Nora Volkow, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, by “exacerbating the already very severe problem that we have in overdose deaths.” | Drew Angerer/Getty Images

Life expectancy in the United States dropped last year to its lowest since 1996, extending a downward trend that began in 2020, according to new data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The latest figures from the CDC, which leave expected U.S. lifespans well below those in other large, wealthy nations, reflect the federal and local governments’ ongoing struggle to meet the demands of concurrent public health crises.


The Covid-19 pandemic has had “a domino effect,” said Nora Volkow, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, by “exacerbating the already very severe problem that we have in overdose deaths.”


The two crises, the Covid-19 pandemic and rising drug addiction and overdoses, are “a wake-up call” for government, added Michael Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota. “It clearly is what’s cutting into the health of our communities, unlike almost anything we’ve seen before.”

People born in the U.S. in 2021 can now expect to live 76.4 years, wiping out roughly a generation’s worth of gains. In 2019, the figure was 78.8.

It’s a dramatic reversal for the U.S., where life expectancy had been rising since the turn of the 20th century. The upward trajectory was steady for decades, driven by gains in public health and medicine.

That reversed with Covid’s arrival in 2020. The disease pummeled an overstretched U.S. health care system, and the CDC found death rates worsened in the pandemic’s second year. The number of Covid-19 deaths jumped nearly 20 percent from 2020 to 2021 and were once again the third-leading cause of death — behind heart disease and cancer.

Though deaths have declined in 2022, many public health experts believe they could be much lower. The ongoing politicization of the U.S. Covid response has negatively impacted many Americans’ decisions about vaccination and other mitigation measures. Roughly 14 percent of Americans and 36 percent of people 65 and over have received the latest booster, according to the CDC.

At the same time, Volkow believes the pandemic drove social changes that made people more vulnerable to taking drugs as a way of escaping. The pandemic also made it harder to get help. “Resources that were able to support people in the past were no longer available,” she said.

More than 106,000 people died from a drug overdose in 2021, a nearly 16 percent increase from 2020. The rate of deaths from synthetic opioids — including fentanyl — cocaine and psychostimulants, such as methamphetamines, all increased by more than 20 percent.

That comes on top of a 30 percent increase in overdose deaths in 2020.

Fatal drug overdose rates increased among nearly every racial and ethnic group, and were highest among American Indian or Alaska Native and Black individuals.

The Biden administration has struggled to respond as the deadly trafficking of fentanyl and other synthetic opioids has evolved, and to expand access to treatment for substance use disorder.

Overall, there were 3,464,231 deaths registered in the U.S. in 2021 — 80,502 more than in 2020. The other leading causes of death included unintentional injuries, stroke, chronic lower respiratory diseases, Alzheimer’s disease, diabetes, chronic liver disease and cirrhosis, and kidney disease.

After Covid-19, the rate of people dying from unintentional injuries, which include drug overdoses, and liver disease and cirrhosis, most commonly caused by drinking alcohol, hepatitis and complications due to obesity and diabetes, saw the largest increases.

Rates of death have increased the most among American Indian or Alaska Native women, followed by white men.

According to provisional data the CDC released in August, white people’s life expectancy has declined from 78.8 in 2019 to 76.4 in 2021.

American Indian and Alaska Native people now have a life expectancy of 65.2 years, that data shows, down from 71.8 in 2019.

Covid-19 and overdose deaths drive U.S. life expectancy to a 25-year low

A baby born in 2021 can expect to live 76.4 years, down from 78.8 in 2019.

www.politico.com

 

[mili]

Get lost ! Nobody cares about americans.
The world only care about Chinese.

 

[beijingwalker]

‘Too many people are lost to drug overdose deaths’​

An estimated 500,000 Americans have died from opioid overdoses in the last two decades, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) statistics from 1999 to 2019.
More than 70,000 died from drug overdoses in 2019 alone.

 

[retaxis]

We know black and brown people like mexicans have lower life expectancy. As they will dominate the population within the next 20 years, expect US to slide up in all major demographic statistics such as crime, drugs, violence, sexual violence, corruption, racial violence etc.

 

[Hamartia Antidote]

We know black and brown people like mexicans have lower life expectancy. As they will dominate the population within the next 20 years, expect US to slide up in all major demographic statistics such as crime, drugs, violence, sexual violence, corruption, racial violence etc.

I'm sure Stormfront and the Klan would love to hire you as a non-white token front-man for them.

Remember the PDF mantra about how "white people are the only racists"...looks like you don't fit the mold.

 

[retaxis]

I'm sure Stormfront and the Klan would love to hire you as a non-white token front-man for them.

Remember the PDF mantra about how "white people are the only racists"...looks like you don't fit the mold.

I am sure they will love that I enjoy blacks/browns gang banging their descendents and wiping them out while China keeps its DNA in tact and overtakes them many fold. Should I tell them that or keep it a secret?

 

[Hamartia Antidote]

China keeps its DNA in tact

LOL! Let me add the Nazis to the list of groups you can be a front-man for.

 

[beijingwalker]

The Number One Health Story From 2022 Is The Troubling Decline In Life Expectancy​

Joshua Cohen
Jan. 1 2023

The biggest health story from 2022 isn’t Covid-19. It isn’t RSV or influenza, either. It isn’t cancer, diabetes, or cardiovascular disease. It’s something that encompasses all these diseases and much more. It’s the troubling decline in U.S. life expectancy.

Life expectancy in the U.S. is at the lowest point in 26 years. To solely blame this on Covid-19 is wrong. U.S. life expectancy was stagnant between 2012 and 2019. And, prior to 2012, beginning around 1990, the upward slope was much flatter in the U.S. than any of our peers. Washington DC, we have a major life expectancy problem that needs to be taken much more seriously.

This is not about healthcare expenditures per se. The U.S. spends much more per-person on healthcare than any other large wealthy country, yet its residents die an average of at least four years younger. For decades the gap has been widening. This damning statistic “never seems to sink in with the public and policymakers.”

Healthcare isn’t the only determinant of life expectancy. But it’s certainly a key factor. Here, affordability, and availability are much greater problems in the U.S. than our peer nations.

Apart from having a fragmented system, there’s government lassitude when it comes to public health issues. Take one example of how the federal government’s myopia gets in the way of having a rational approach.

In 2022, Covid-19 persists as the third leading cause of death. Nonetheless, the U.S. government has decided to drastically reduce its Covid-19 preparedness, even as a massive surge is underway throughout China, which could have far-reaching implications outside its border. Congress’s recently passed Omnibus bill has no new funds for Covid-19 vaccines, testing, and treatments.

The laundry list of neglected areas in U.S. public health is long. Below is an enumeration of just some of the issues that U.S. public health is faring poorly on.

• Obesity, for example, is a public health crisis in this country, to an extent not observed among our peers. The correlations between obesity and many diseases is well established. These include diabetes, cardiovascular disease, stroke, hypertension, and cancer. Wegovy (semaglutide) and other newer weight loss agents will help. But, none are elixirs. And, to be effective they all require a concomitant concerted effort at diet control and exercise. Moreover, obesity prevention is critical. While genetic predisposition to obesity can be a factor, diet and exercise can counteract that propensity. But, judging by federal investment in nutrition research, the federal government appears indifferent. The share of federal research dollars allocated to nutrition has stayed largely flat for at least 30 years. Funding for nutrition research by the National Institutes of Health and the Department of Agriculture - the two largest entities to fund nutrition studies - pales in comparison to many other areas of research.
• The U.S. is the only industrialized nation in the world where maternity mortality is rising. And, the U.S. already has nearly the highest maternal mortality rate among high-income countries. Yet, incomprehensibly 17 states refuse to cover postpartum care through Medicaid.
• Gun violence is a public health issue in the U.S. For purely political reasons it’s never addressed head on in Congress. After each mass shooting incident - more than 660 occurred in 2022 - “thoughts and prayers” ring hollow. Yet, an offering of thoughts and prayers is the most that many in Congress do in response to gun-related deaths.
• Underinsurance is a public health issue in the U.S. when people with health insurance still can’t afford to use healthcare. And it’s more than just accessing prescription drugs. Mental healthcare coverage, for instance, is deficient in the U.S.
• Illicit fentanyl is currently the biggest public health issue in the U.S. Yet, the federal and state policy responses have been and continue to be woefully inadequate.

Let’s hope we Americans begin to care more about life expectancy and public health in 2023. But it’s unrealistic to think we will. Part of this is politics. As mentioned in my predictions for 2023, many politicians have railed against public health for years, and appear determined to undermine whatever authority is left in our public health agencies. But, part of the problem is the outsized role of money and profits in our healthcare system. There’s simply not enough money to be earned in public health. And money drives healthcare in the U.S. to a degree that is unparalleled among our peers; from investment and research funding decisions to the the vested interests of important stakeholders.

From the drug industry’s perspective, investments must be made in therapeutic areas where the chances of clinical, regulatory, and commercial success are comparatively high. This generally does not include public health focused areas such as drug addiction, bacterial infections, and even cardiovascular disease. So, despite the fact that women have a tenfold greater chance of dying from heart disease than breast cancer, there’s much less funding in cardiovascular health (for men and women) than breast cancer.

Perhaps we invest a disproportionate amount in rare diseases,* as Peter Bach believes. It may make more sense societally if more was invested in other diseases that broadly impact Americans. Here of course the public investment wouldn’t be solely concentrated on prescription drugs. Public awareness campaigns and prevention efforts would also feature prominently.

If the U.S. is going to stem the tide of decreasing life expectancy, it will have to reorder its healthcare priorities. At this point in time, this seems like an unrealistic proposition.

A passage from a book published ten years ago by authors at the Institute of Medicine neatly sums up the issue at hand: “To the detriment of society, its fixation on clinical care and its delivery eclipses attention to population-based activities that offer efficient and effective approaches to improving the nation’s health.”

The Number One Health Story From 2022 Is The Troubling Decline In Life Expectancy

The biggest health story from 2022 isn’t Covid-19. It isn’t RSV or influenza, either. It isn’t cancer, diabetes, or cardiovascular disease. It’s something that encompasses all these diseases and much more. It’s the troubling decline in U.S. life expectancy.

www.forbes.com

 

[beijingwalker]

A city in crisis: How fentanyl devastated San Francisco - BBC Newsnight​

 

[beijingwalker]