Life expectancy in the United States has declined for two years in a row, fueled by increasing death rates from opioid drug overdoses, suicides and chronic liver disease, a new government report shows.
“It’s really the first time we’ve seen this multi-year drop” in decades, said Renee Gindi, chief of the Analytic Studies Branch of the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS), part of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. She’s one of the lead coordinators for the report.
