Deaths: Preliminary Data for 2003

Life Expectancy Reaches Record High

Report extract

By: Donna L. Hoyert, et. al.

Date: February 28, 2005

Source: National Center for Health Statistics. National Vital Statistics Reports 53, no. 15 (February 28, 2005).

About the Author: This article was written by staff from the Division of Vital Statistics in the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) a section of the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. CDC was founded in 1946 to help control malaria. Today its mission is to improve public health by preventing and controlling chronic disease, injuries, workplace hazards, disabilities and environmental health threats. The NCHS is the nation's leading health statistics agency and collects timely, relevant, and accurate data to help guide actions and policies to improve the health of the American people.

INTRODUCTION

Life expectancy at birth in the United States went up dramatically during the twentieth century and, according to the data collected so far, has continued to increase during the early years of this new century. In 1900, male life expectancy was forty-eight years and female life expectancy was fifty-one. By 2000, these figures had increased to seventy-four and eighty years, respectively. The figures for 2003 show a further small increase to 74.8 years for men and 80.1 years for women.

There are two ways of looking at life expectancy, depending on how old the individual is at the time the data is collected. Life expectancy at birth will differ from life expectancy at a specific age. Thus in 2000, an American white male born that year would have a life expectancy of seventy-five, while a man aged sixty-five had a remaining life expectancy of sixteen years. The reasons why some people live longer than others probably depend on many factors. If someone has survived longer than the average life expectancy then they may (for biological reasons still not well understood) be aging more slowly than average and still have many years left to live.

The first half of the twentieth century saw a dramatic fall in the number of deaths from infection thanks to improvements in public sanitation, the introduction of antibiotics, and wider usage of vaccination. As people began to live longer, they became more prone to the diseases of aging and lifestyle such as heart disease, stroke, and cancer. As the abstract from the report below shows (an abstract is an overview), the death rates from some of these chronic diseases are now beginning to fall as well, probably because of earlier diagnosis and better treatments.

PRIMARY SOURCE

ABSTRACT

Objectives—This report presents preliminary U.S. data on deaths, death rates, life expectancy, leading causes of death, and infant mortality for the year 2003 by selected characteristics such as age, sex, race, and Hispanic origin.

Methods—Data in this report are based on a large number of deaths comprising approximately 93 percent of the demographic file and 91 percent of the medical file for all deaths in the United States in 2003. The records are weighted to independent control counts for 2003. For certain causes of death such as unintentional injuries, homicides, suicides, and respiratory diseases, preliminary and final data differ because of the truncated nature of the preliminary file. Comparisons are made with 2002 final data.

Results—The age-adjusted death rate for the United States decreased from 845.3 deaths per 100,000 population in 2002 to 831.2 deaths per 100,000 population in 2003. Age-adjusted death rates decreased between 2002 and 2003 for the following causes: Diseases of heart, Malignant neoplasms, Cerebrovascular diseases, Accidents (unintentional injuries), Influenza and pneumonia, Intentional self-harm (suicide), Chronic liver disease and cirrhosis, and Pneumonitis due to solids and liquids. They increased between 2002 and 2003 for the following: Alzheimer's disease, Nephritis, nephrotic syndrome and nephrosis, Essential (primary) hypertension and hypertensive renal disease, and Parkinson's disease. Life expectancy at birth rose by 0.3 years to a record high of 77.6 years.

SIGNIFICANCE

Americans are living longer, but the yearly increments in life expectancy are slowing down. This may suggest that there is a biological natural limit to how long humans can live. Reaching one hundred years is no longer uncommon, but there are a few who have survived to 110 and beyond. What is perhaps more relevant than increasing how long we can live is looking the quality of life remaining in later years. And this involves using the data to look at the trends in the diseases that cause death.

Increased rates of death were found in the most recent data, summarized above, for Alzheimer's and Parkinson's diseases and for complications of high blood pressure (hypertension). The first two are neurological diseases for which there is still an urgent need for early diagnosis and effective treatments. High blood pressure is treatable, but remains undiagnosed and uncontrolled in many individuals.

The statistics also look at ethnic differences in mortality and life expectancy. For the first time, life expectancy for all women in the United States exceeded eighty years. Overall, however, there were still ethnic differences, with white people having a life expectancy of seventy-eight years compared to seventy-three years for African Americans. Meanwhile, shortest life expectancy group was for African American males at less than seventy years.

The United States may, arguably, be the most developed nation on earth but it does not have the highest life expectancy. This belongs to Japan, where people can expect to live more than eighty years. An affluent lifestyle is not always beneficial for health. Some experts have said that the Unites States is vulnerable to a downward trend in life expectancy in coming years because of the increased incidence of obesity and related diseases such as diabetes, cancer, and heart disease. Meanwhile, infectious disease, and HIV/AIDS in particular, continue to blight the life expectancies of developing countries. Collection of mortality and life expectancy data, such as that reported above, continues to be a vital tool in helping improve health and quality of life among people around the world.

FURTHER RESOURCES

Books

Bohan, Suzanne, and Glenn Thompson. 50 Simple Ways To Live A Longer Life: Everyday Techniques From The Forefront Of Science. Naperville, IL: Sourcebooks, 2005.

Periodicals

Dwyer, J. "Global health and justice." Bioethics October 2005 19: 460-475.

Web sites

ElderWeb. "1900–2000:Changes in Life Expectancy in the United States." 〈http://www.elderweb.com/history/?PageID=2838〉 (accessed December 4, 2005).

Medical News Today. "Life Expectancy in USA Increases to 77.6 Years; Deaths from Heart Disease, Cancer Decline, Report Finds." 〈http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/newsletters.php〉 (accessed December 4, 2005).

National Center for Health Statistics. "Deaths: Preliminary Data for 2003." 〈http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr53/nvsr53_15.pdf〉 (accessed December 4, 2005).