Troubling Trends
Life spans in the United States are getting shorter and death rates are up. To me, this means that we aren't doing our jobs as physicians. More important than healing our patients' flesh, we must inspire them to become the agents of their own salvation.
For the first time since 1993, when the HIV epidemic was at its height, life expectancy dropped from one year to the next, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.[1] The decline wasn't huge. Life expectancy at birth fell from 78.9 years in 2014 to 78.8 years in 2015. The death rate increased from 724.6 deaths per 100,000 people in 2014 to 733.1. But if that trend continues in coming years, it will add up to a frightening reversal in decades of improving health in this country.
Unlike 1993, when AIDS was the clear culprit, the causes are now varied. The leading causes of death remained the same in 2014 and 2015: heart disease, cancer, chronic lower respiratory diseases, unintentional injuries, stroke, Alzheimer disease, diabetes, influenza and pneumonia, kidney disease, and suicideOf these, the rates of death decreased only for cancer and held steady only for influenza and pneumonia, while increasing for all of the others.
