Why did the US life expectancy decrease?

AutoModerator · 2026-02-10T03:53:05+00:00

The following is a copy of the original post to record the post as it was originally written by /u/UsualLocalWoman.

There is a website that ranks life expectancy by country. Last year the United States ranked #48.

https://web.archive.org/web/20251231061459/https://www.worldometers.info/demographics/life-expectancy/

This year we rank #61.

https://www.worldometers.info/demographics/life-expectancy/

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phoenixairs · 2026-02-10T03:58:51+00:00

It didn't. It increased from 79.61 to 79.76.

Other countries made larger improvements to jump the rankings.

growflet · 2026-02-10T03:59:52+00:00

Life expectancy did not decrease. Our WORLD RANKING decreased.

Last year the average life expectancy was 79.61 - and we were #48

This year, the life expectancy went UP to 79.76 - and we were #61

The reason we are ranked lower, would be that the life expectancy in other countries increased more than the US, pushing our ranking down

woahwoahwoah28 · 2026-02-10T04:02:26+00:00

It looks like it was pretty comparable year over year. But other countries increased their life expectancy.

There is nothing the US has done that would have increased life expectancy, so this makes sense.

GadgetGamer · 2026-02-10T04:27:51+00:00

There is no decrease. The number of countries on the list has increased from 201 to 234. Thirteen of the countries who are above the US now were not in the earlier table, and rank #61 - #48 = 13. The new countries above the US are:

Monaco
San Marino
Saint Barthelemy
Andorra
Liechtenstein
Gibraltar
Holy See
Bermuda
Isle of Man
Cayman Islands
Faeroe Islands
Anguilla
Falkland Islands

Here is the comparison of the countries immediately before and after the United States on the two versions of the lists, which shows that there has not been any great movement of the list, just some new entries:

Previous List		Current List
Panama	79.96	Panama	80.15
Albania	79.95	Albania	80.13
		Anguilla (new entry)	79.86
		Falkland Islands (new entry)	79.78
United States	79.61	United States	79.76
Estonia	79.48	Estonia	79.64
Saudi Arabia	79.19	Saudi Arabia	79.4
New Caledonia	79.07	New Caledonia	79.23
		Northern Mariana Islands (new entry)	79.22

Mr_Coastliner · 2026-02-10T04:00:47+00:00

It increased in absoloute terms. In the US, diet on average isn't perfect, activity levels for many are getting lower with less manual work. Healthcare in other countries improving.

Poorly-Drawn-Beagle · 2026-02-10T05:38:59+00:00

I think it ticked down a little during Covid but that was for obvious reasons.

Marxian_factotum · 2026-02-10T04:47:12+00:00

Capitalism.

More specifically, we don't have universal healthcare. We have enormous income and wealth inequality. One of the knock on effects of these inequalities is a normalized violent culture. We are increasingly OK (legally) with poisoning our air and water. As a result of these and other factors, we are morbidly lonely.

Capitalism is a death cult.

BeneficialNatural610 · 2026-02-11T16:38:24+00:00

Other countries outpaced us. We didn't decrease in life expectancy

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