Americans Are Dying Even Younger
Drug overdoses and suicides are causing American life expectancy to drop.
Three reports released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Thursday paint a bleak picture of a country in which people are growing sick, using drugs, and dying young—many of them by their own hand.
American life expectancy is continuing its , according to the CDC’s latest statistical release. Americans are dying at an average age of 78.6. Though that is roughly the, the agency called it a decline of a tenth of a year. The drop has been driven significantly by 70,237 deaths from drug overdoses. For comparison, that number’s nearly equal to the entire population of Bismarck, North Dakota’s capital. In 2016, a among Americans aged 24 to 35 were due to opioids.
