Australia outpaces other English-speaking nations in life expectancy, offering a model for the U.S. to address preventable causes of death and improve health outcomes.
Despite being home to some of the world’s most dangerous animals, Australia has led the English-speaking world in life expectancy for the last three decades. Among other high-income Anglophone nations, the Irish experienced the most significant improvements in life expectancy, while Americans have ranked dead last since the early 1990s, according to a team of social scientists led by a Penn State researcher.
The team published their findings in the journal BMJ Open.
“One lesson we Americans can learn about life expectancy from looking at comparable countries is where the frontier of best performance lies,” said Jessica Ho, associate professor of sociology and demography at Penn State and senior author on the paper. “Yes, we’re doing badly, but this study shows what can we aim for. We know these gains in life expectancy are actually achievable because other large countries have already done it.”
The researchers compared life expectancy in the United States, Canada, Ireland, the United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand using data from the Human Mortality Database and the World Health Organization Mortality Database between 1990 and 2019. They analyzed the data by sex, age, and 18 individual and comprehensive cause of death categories, including cancers, drug- and alcohol-related deaths, firearms, and motor vehicle collisions.
They also examined life expectancy within each country to identify geographical inequalities in life expectancy by region.
Findings on Longevity and Geographical Inequalities
The researchers found that Australians had the longest life expectancy at birth over the study period, with women living nearly 4 more years and men 5 more years than their American counterparts. The Irish showed the largest gains in life expectancy, with men’s lifespans increasing by approximately 8 years and women’s lifespans by more than 6.5 years. Americans had the shortest life expectancy at birth, with women living an average of almost 81.5 years and men an average of nearly 76.5 years in 2019.
The United States also showed some of the largest geographical inequalities in life expectancy compared to the other countries, according to the researchers. Women and men in California and Hawaii had some of the highest life expectancies at birth, with women averaging 83 to 83.9 years and men averaging 77.5 to 78.4 years. States in the American Southeast saw some of the lowest life expectancies at birth of all subnational regions studied, with women averaging 72.6 to 79.9 years and men averaging 69.3 to 74.4 years.
Challenges and Recommendations
“One of the main drivers of why American longevity is so much shorter than in other high-income countries is our younger people die at higher rates from largely preventable causes of death, like drug overdose, car accidents, and homicide,” said Ho, who is also an associate of Penn State’s Social Science Research Institute.
In midlife — the 45 to 64 age range — some of these causes continue, like high death rates from drug- and alcohol-related mortality, Ho explained, adding that Americans also see higher rates of DOI: 10.1136/bmjopen-2023-079365
The study was funded by the National Institute on Aging.
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