Americans are rejoicing over a new report detailing how the life expectancy of US adults has increased for the first time since 2014—and it is largely because of a landmark decline in cancer mortality and drug overdoses.
According to the newly-released data from the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), American life expectancy increased slightly from 78.6 years in 2017 to 78.7 years in 2018.
Although this is only an improvement of 0.1 years, it is still cause for celebration; the trend is partially due to a notable 4.1% drop in overdose deaths from the previous year, which is the equivalent of about 3,000 fewer fatalities.
It is also the first time that the drug overdose rate has fallen in the US since 1999.
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“I think these numbers suggest that some positive news is starting to come out of the many efforts to try to stem the tide on overdoses,” Kathryn McHugh, a psychologist at McLean Psychiatric Hospital and Harvard University, told NPR.
Additionally, fewer and fewer people are dying from cancer in the United States every year, with 2017 showing the largest single-year drop in cancer mortality ever reported.
The cancer death rate declined by 29% from 1991 to 2017, including a whopping 2.2% drop from 2016 to 2017, which translates to approximately 2.9 million fewer cancer deaths than would have occurred had mortality rates remained at their peak. That trend continued into 2018 with another 2% drop in mortality rates.
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The report goes on to say that this decline in cancer-related deaths accounted for 30% of the increase in life expectancy in 2018.
Six of the country’s ten leading causes of death also declined, with heart disease—the number one leading cause of mortality—declining by 0.8%.
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