Lowered U.S. Life Expectancy, Part 1 – Violence

We know that those of us living in the United States have shorter life expectancy than those living in similar industrialized countries, such as in Europe. We also know that Americans are far more likely to be the victims of homicide than those who live in countries like ours, but how much does that increased risk of homicide impact life expectancy? How much longer would we be likely to live if we didn’t live in such a violent country?

The Associated Press looked at this question in its coverage of a recent report about health discrepancies between the United States and other industrialized nations. The report, U.S. Health in International Perspective: Shorter Lives, Poorer Health is available to read for free online.

First, lets look at just how big those life expectancy discrepancies are. The report looks at life expectancy of men and women in 17 similar countries in 2007. For women, the U.S. life expectancy rate in 2007 was 80.78 years. Japan led the world in life expectancy for women that year at 85.98 years. So U.S. women had a life expectancy 5.2 years lower than Japan.

For men, the U.S. life expectancy rate in 2007 was 75.64 years. Switzerland led the world in life expectancy for men in 2007 with an average of 79.33 years. So American men born in 2007 could expect to die 3.69 years sooner on average than men born in the same year in Switzerland.

The report estimates that homicide and suicide together account for up 25 percent of that disparity for U.S. men. So, compared to Switzerland, American men born in 2007 will on average die a little over 11 months earlier because of the combination of an extremely high homicide rate and relatively high suicide rate.

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