U.S. life expectancy slipped as recession took hold

[The Straight Story]

U.S. life expectancy slipped as recession took hold

Life expectancy in the United States dropped in 2008, the first full year of a grueling recession that saw mixed effects, both good and bad, on the nation’s health, according to new government data.

Overall life expectancy fell to 77.8 years, down slightly from 77.9 in 2007, the year that the recession began, and below a record high of 78.1 years in 2006. In a country like the U.S., the drop is small but ominous, public health experts said.

“The decline in life expectancy is a wake-up call,” said Ali Mokdad, a professor of global health at the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington. “It is a call for action.”

Death rates due to high blood pressure, chronic respiratory disease and suicide all rose in 2008, though health officials cautioned it’s still too early to tie those effects directly to the recession.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/40578643/ns/health-aging/from/toolbar

[Individualist]

1. It will slip far more with attacks on Social Security.

[madrchsod]

2. well that`s one way to thin the herd of the old,sick,and the lame.

[kenny blankenship]

3. Americans used to sneer about Russia's declining LE after the collapse of the USSR

And before that, we also used to joke about their political leaders being bosses of their Secret Police.

Funny how things turn out.