The biggest threat to our national well-being
Dec 2, 2019, 5:54 PM
(AP Photo/Elise Amendola)
Despite strong economic growth of recent years, an even more important number tells a much less encouraging story.
For three years in a row now, we’ve suffered an unprecedented decline in life expectancy—with self-inflicted harm striking more Americans in the prime of life. The lead author of a new study for the American Medical Association says, “the whole country is at a disadvantage compared to other wealthy nations.”
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While people around the world enjoy steady increases in longevity, America has been moving in the wrong direction for the first time in a century.
Experts say prime causes are drug overdoses, suicides, and alcoholism—“deaths of despair” that inflict a horrible toll, despite declining rates of crime and poverty, and dramatic improvements in medical care.
Prospective leaders in an election year must confront this threat to our national well-being that prematurely steals spouses, parents, neighbors and work colleagues from those who need them.