USA Today (10/8, Copeland) reports that life expectancy in the United States rose in 2012 to a record high of 78.8 years, up from 78.7 years in 2011, “according to a new report on mortality in the USA from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Center for Health Statistics. “ Life expectancy for females was 81.2 years, and 76.4 years for males. The difference of 4.8 years is the same as 2011. The report also found that the age-adjusted death rate fell 1.1 percent in 2012 to a record low of 732.8 per 100,000 people. The report attributes “much of the recent improvement in both death rates and life expectancy to reductions in deaths from such major illnesses as heart disease, cancer and stroke.”
Bloomberg News (10/8, Pettypiece) reports that eight of the 10 main causes of death fell in 2012, according to the report, “including a 1.8 percent reduction in heart disease-related deaths and a 1.5 percent drop in cancer deaths.” Elizabeth Arias, a demographer at the CDC and an author of the paper, stated, “We continue to follow the pattern that we have been seeing for a few decades, where life expectancy is gradually increasing and death rates from the leading causes of death are decreasing.”
The AP (10/8, Stobbe) adds that the suicide rate increased more than 2 percent “to 12.6 per suicide deaths per 100,000 American,” the highest level since 1987.
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