572 - Can U.S. Life Expectancy Declines be Reversed?
Public Health On Call
The Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health
4.6 • 644 Ratings
🗓️ 10 February 2023
⏱️ 15 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
The average life expectancy in the United States has dropped precipitously during the pandemic—and COVID-19 is not the only culprit. Dr. Josh Sharfstein, who leads the Bloomberg American Health Initiative at Johns Hopkins, talks to co-host Stephanie Desmon about a new report on how we can halt U.S. life expectancy declines by focusing on major causes of the declines: COVID, opioids, gun homicides and suicides, motor vehicle crashes, heart disease, diabetes, and stroke. This report sets out ten feasible ideas for reversing the decline and setting the nation on a path of greater equity and health.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to Public Health On Call, a podcast from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, |
| 0:05.9 | where we bring evidence, experience, and perspective to make sense of today's leading health challenges. |
| 0:16.3 | If you have questions or ideas for us, please send an email to public health question at jh. |
| 0:21.6 | Jh.edu. |
| 0:22.6 | That's public health question at jh.u.edu for future podcast episodes. |
| 0:29.6 | This is Stephanie Desmond. |
| 0:32.6 | Today I turn the tables on my co-host, Dr. Josh Sharfstein, who leads the Bloomberg American Health Initiative at Johns Hopkins, as we discuss a new report on the decline of life expectancy in the United States. |
| 0:45.2 | Average life expectancy has dropped precipitously since 2019 for reasons that go beyond the COVID pandemic. |
| 0:51.1 | He tells me how we can reverse the trend. Let's listen. Josh Scharstein, |
| 0:55.6 | thanks so much for joining me. Thank you for having me, Stephanie. Great to see you. |
| 0:59.4 | I wanted to talk today about life expectancy and a new report that you at the Bloomberg |
| 1:05.8 | American Health Initiative have released on the decline of U.S. life expectancy. |
| 1:11.6 | This is pretty unprecedented, is it not? |
| 1:14.6 | So in 2021, the average life expectancy in the United States was 76.1 years, which is down 2.8 years from the peak in 2014. |
| 1:25.6 | It's an enormous decline. We haven't seen this kind of decline since World War I |
| 1:30.3 | and the Great Influenza over 100 years ago. |
| 1:33.6 | And so myself and a whole bunch of faculty, actually, |
| 1:37.1 | at the School of Public Health, |
| 1:38.6 | who are involved in the Bloomberg American Health Initiative, |
| 1:40.7 | put our heads together to say, well, what can we do? |
| 1:43.7 | What's going on? What are the reasons for this say, well, what can we do? What's going on? |
| 1:44.4 | What are the reasons for this historic decline and what can be done? |
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