U.S. Life Span Declining

With all of today's modern medicine can you expect to live longer? The answer is NO if you live in the United States. While globally, affluent countries have seen an increase in longevity almost without exception, the life span of Americans is declining by a staggering rate of 4 percent for men and 19 percent for women in certain areas of the country since the 1980s.

One out of five American women have had their health either waning or showing no improvement in the last two decades, primarily due to chronic diseases such lung cancer, obesity, heart disease, and diabetes. Men face these same risks but are also at an increased risk of death due to homicides and HIV/AIDS.

Researchers at Harvard School of Public Health and the University of Washington used the National Center for Health Statistics' mortality data and data from the U.S. Census Bureau for the time period of 1959 through 2000. The research analyzed data on a county-by-county basis, making it the first to explore mortality per county over such large time span.

The Mississippi River Valley, Appalachia, the Deep South, Texas, and the southern part of the Midwest, were the areas that showed the greatest decline in longevity. Doctors in these areas say they're finding alarming increases in cancer, diabetes, and heart and lung disease. These areas are economically depressed, and many people, especially women, can't afford even minimal health care. While at the other end of the spectrum, the most affluent areas report an uninterrupted increase in life expectancy.

The gap between men in affluent areas with the longest life expectancy and those with the shortest was 9 years in 1983 but expanded to 11 years by 1999, while the discrepancy for women was 6.7 years in 1983 and 7.5 in 1999.

"The data demonstrate a very alarming and deeply concerning increase in health disparities in the United States," said Elizabeth G. Nabel, director of the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute of the National Institutes of Health.

Longevity is universally associated with the quality of health care and social systems within a country. The inadequacies in the U.S. could be tolerated as long as the nation's health in general is improving, but the study shows that in some areas life expectancies are actually declining.

Researchers believe that poor eating habits, lack of education. and limited access to health care, are partially to blame. The real concern is that the Harvard study may be an indicator of future declines in life expectancy in other parts of the country.

Most of these disparities are also a sign that "the health and social system have failed, as has been the case in parts of Africa and Eastern Europe," said Dr. Chris Murray, co-author of the study. "The fact that is happening to a large number of Americans should be a sign that the U.S. health system needs serious rethinking."