According to a study conducted by the National Center for Health Statistics at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), life expectancy has decreased in non-Hispanic white women in the last years.

Life expectancy is a factor related to the number of years that a hypothetical group of people live in each attained age and is part of a large study of statistics to measure the standard of living of one particular group.

Elizabeth Arias is with CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics, Division of Vital Statistics and leads the study. Although life expectancy of American people remained at 81.2 years for women and 76.4 years for men, the stratum of non-Hispanic white women has decreased by one point, between 2013 and 2014 and stated in 81.1 years.

According to a study life expectancy has decreased in non-Hispanic white women in the last years. Photo credit: Wbal
According to a study life expectancy has decreased in non-Hispanic white women in the last years. Photo credit: Digital vision / WBAL

This study will be helpful for scientists to determine which of the above-mentioned factors are those that can explain this particular data, which is the key to understanding these big problems more holistically and to be able to establish what is happening in those specific communities. One possibility is that people with poor health are those who are living in economically affected communities. Another possibility is the lifestyle of these women.

This report does not really reflect the causes of this decline, but researchers believe that the trend at birth has been toward improvement since national statistics were published at the earliest opportunity with data from 1900. Too old!

Other investigations

Laudan Yvette Aron, a senior fellow at the Urban Institute, publishes an article in which explain possible reasons of why the U.S. residents have the lowest life expectancy rate compared to other high-income countries in order to display a wide range of factors including increased rates of suicide, drug abuse, and cirrhosis.

This point is very important, so it draws attention, and it will be followed up by the researchers to determine if this situation continues a downward trend in the coming years, says Aron.

With the above-mentioned studies, it is possible to search for necessary improvements to give non-Hispanic white women a better quality of life and increase their life expectancy.

Source: CDC