For the second year in a row, life expectancy in the United States has declined, reaching 76 years, while other countries experienced an increase in their life expectancies after the arrival of vaccines during the pandemic. Even more alarming, maternal mortality rates and mortality rates among children and adolescents are also on the rise. What’s behind this concerning trend and why hasn’t the United States been able to tackle these issues effectively?
A decade-old study called “Shorter Lives, Poorer Health” identified various factors contributing to the lower life expectancy in the U.S., including poor diets, sedentary lifestyles, high disease rates even among those with healthy behaviors, and social factors such as poverty, racial segregation, and social isolation.
The Chris Hayes Podcast examines the curious case of why Americans are dying so young, with Anne Case, Alexander Stewart 1886 Professor of Economics and Public Affairs, Emeritus at the Princeton University School of Public and International Affairs and Angus Deaton, Nobel Prize Winner and Senior Scholar and the Dwight D. Eisenhower Professor of Economics and International Affairs Emeritus at the Princeton School of Public and International Affairs and the Economics Department. Case and Deaton join WITHpod to discuss what their findings reveal about capitalism and the U.S. healthcare system, education-related disparities in mortality, what might be done to reverse the surge in deaths and more.
Fred Barstein, contributing editor for WealthManagement.com’s RPA Edge, lists this podcast among his list of top interesting industry news in this week’s Real Talk episode. Find this podcast and explore a range of other interesting stories by clicking here.
