Reversals in life expectancy

Assembled from 17 blocks · 2 evidence · 14 related

1. Story
2. Evidence that the historical gain is neither automatic nor irreversible. United States life expectancy at birth stalled after about 2014 and then fell in successive years, with drug overdoses, alcohol and suicide among working-age adults as major contributors; it fell sharply again in 2020 and 2021 during the COVID-19 pandemic, to roughly 76.4 years in 2021, before recovering to about 78.4 years in 2023 — still below the mid-2010s peak. Russian male life expectancy fell by several years in the 1990s. Globally, the WHO reported that the pandemic erased roughly a decade of gains, returning global life expectancy to about 71.4 years in 2021. These reversals matter to this Journey because they identify what the historical increase actually depended on: social conditions, health systems and infection control, all of which can go backwards. Nothing about ageing biology changed in any of these episodes.
3. Knowledge
4. The rise in life expectancy at birth
5. Reversals in life expectancy
6. Connections
7. The rise in life expectancy at birth
8. The pandemic erases a decade of life expectancy gains
9. Antibiotics
10. The collapse of infant and child mortality
11. Sanitation and water treatment
12. Vaccination
13. Reversals in life expectancy
14. The pandemic erases a decade of life expectancy gains
15. Evidence
16. Supports the United States life expectancy trajectory: a stall after about 2014, a fall to roughly 76.4 years in 2021 and a partial recovery to about 78.4 in 2023. V55 verification basis: not retrieved; whether the 2023 figure is final or provisional, and the 2024–2025 values, are unchecked.
17. Supports the paired life expectancy and healthy life expectancy figures and the pandemic-era reversal. V55 verification basis: the report was NOT retrieved; the specific edition carrying the 2021 values must be identified and the figures checked by the curator.