Analysis of mortality patterns across the US indicates a stagnant or falling life expectancy for many parts of the American population.
A study conducted by researchers from the Harvard School of Public Health, Boston and Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts; the University of California, San Francisco; and the University of Washington, Seattle found that wide disparities in life expectancy continue to exist among population groups in the US.
Figures show that four per cent of men and 19 per cent of women experienced either decline or stagnation in mortality from the 1980s until the end of the century.
The report stated that this “stagnation” in the worst-off counties was mainly due to a leveling off in the reduction of deaths due to cardiovascular diseases and a rise in deaths due to other diseases such as lung cancer, diabetes and chronic lung disease, in both men and women.
Lead author, Majid Ezzati, associate professor of international health at Harvard School of Public Health, said: “There is now evidence that there are large parts of the population in the United States whose health has been getting worse for about two decades.”
