BIRCH team
Life Expectancy Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation Christopher Murray
October 05, 2017 | Health News

NPR: People Are Living Longer in Places You Wouldn't Expect

By Emily Sohn

Where can people expect to live the longest?

The answer to that question is usually pretty predictable and often dependent on wealth: People generally live longer in richer countries. Like Japan and Switzerland, where average life expectancies exceed 83 years.

In lower income countries, expected years of life are often far shorter — hovering below 55 in a number of sub-Saharan countries, including Chad, Mozambique and Sierra Leone.

BIRCH team
Life Expectancy Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation
May 09, 2017 | Health News

Alaska Dispatch News: Alaska Sees the Most Dramatic Increases in Life Expectancy in the Nation, New Study Says

By Michelle Theriault Boots

Over the past 35 years, life expectancy increased more in some remote regions of Alaska than almost anywhere else in the United States, according to detailed new research published this week in the journal JAMA Internal Medicine.

The numbers are striking: In 1980, the average life expectancy of a person born in the North Slope Borough was just 65, on par with places like Sudan and Iraq today.

BIRCH team
Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation Life Expectancy Mortality
December 13, 2016 | Health News

The Atlantic: Why Are So Many Americans Dying Young?

By: Olga Khazan

For the first time since the 1990s, Americans are dying at a faster rate, and they’re dying younger. A pair of new studies suggest Americans are sicker than people in other rich countries, and in some states, progress on stemming the tide of basic diseases like diabetes has stalled or even reversed. The studies suggest so-called “despair deaths”—alcoholism, drugs, and suicide—are a big part of the problem, but so is obesity, poverty, and social isolation.

BIRCH team
Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation Life Expectancy
December 08, 2016 | Health News

NBC News: Death Rate Grows, Life Expectancy Shrinks for Americans

The U.S. death rate is on the rise for the first time in more than 15 years, with life expectancy for a baby born in 2015 dropping slightly, the government reported Thursday.

In a trend that's worrying experts, the nation's death rate — or the number of deaths for every 100,000 U.S. residents — rose 1.2 percent from 2014 to last year, the first noteworthy uptick since 1999.