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The United States is expected to see only modest gains in life expectancy over the next few decades, and the modest improvement highlights the “daunting health challenges” the country faces, researchers said.
Life expectancy in the US is expected to increase from 78.3 years in 2022 to 80.4 years in 2050, according to forecast models by the University of Washington's Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation.
b AnalysisPublished Thursday in the Lancet, researchers assessed the impact of hundreds of diseases and other health risks on the US and individual states and compared them to a group of more than 200 other countries.
They found that the United States lags in life expectancy growth, placing the country behind other high-income countries and some middle-income countries; In terms of overall life expectancy, the U.S. is expected to drop 66 out of 204 countries assessed by 2050, down from 49th in 2022.
In the US, life expectancy for women is projected to improve less than for men, reducing the gender gap in life expectancy. According to IHME projections, the US will drop from 51st to 74th for women and from 51st to 65th for men by 2050.
The modest increase in U.S. life expectancy projected for 2050 is due to declines in mortality from certain causes of death, including heart disease, stroke and diabetes, according to the IHME.
But addressing a few key risk factors could produce even more significant improvements in U.S. life expectancy, forecast models suggest. Low obesity, smoking and substance use disorders could each increase life expectancy by about half a year by 2050.
“Despite moderate increases in overall life expectancy, our models predict that health gains will be slowed by obesity, which is dangerous for many chronic diseases and is expected to reach unprecedented levels,” said Christopher Murray, director of the IHME and co-senior author of the new research, in a news release. They said. “Obesity and overweight in the United States IHME predicts more than 260 million people affected by 2050It presents a public health crisis of unimaginable proportions.
GLP-1 are drugs growing in popularity It has promising results in the US, but the drug's future is uncertain and the IHME has not included a condition that reasonably includes these treatments.
Recent data from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention also indicates that there are more people who have died from drug overdoses It started to decline After reaching record levels, however, the IHME notes that drug overdose rates are high and will increase over the next few decades. The IHME estimates that the age-adjusted death rate from substance use disorders in the US is the highest in the world, and more than double that of Canada, which ranks second.
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“The stark contrast predicted over the next 30 years comes from the coordinated efforts of federal, state, and local government agencies and health systems after the opioid crisis was declared a public health emergency in 2017. Greater effectiveness and continued expansion of programs to prevent and treat drug abuse is still needed.” Ali Mokdad, IHME professor and lead author of the report, said in a news release.
Overall, if the U.S. eliminated risk in three key areas: environmental, behavioral and metabolic risks, and childhood nutrition and immunization, nearly 550,000 people would die in 2050 alone—an increase in life expectancy of about four years based on current projections. According to IHME projections for Canada.
The rapid decline of the US globally from 2022 to 2050 sounds the alarm for urgent action. The US must change course and find new and better health strategies and policies that will reduce future declines in health outcomes, IHME co-senior author and associate professor Dr. Stein Emil Volsett said in a news release.