It's the Brian Lara Show on WNYC. Good morning again, everyone. How long do you expect

to live? Maybe if I'd asked you this question 100 years ago, you would have said maybe 50.

Now that number seems quite low, right? Hopefully you're aiming for at least 80 or 90 years

of life or more. While we've made great strides toward longer lives in this country though,

there's been a reversal of this trend in recent years. According to the Washington Post, have you

seen this deep dive article last few days? Life expectancy in the United States is falling,

and it's not just COVID to blame. The deep dive article also shows us how life expectancy for

different Americans is a dynamic measure of inequality and injustice. One premise is that

health is now a better indicator of inequality than wealth. We'll explain. Joining us now is one

of the authors of this piece, Akila Johnson. She's a reporter focused specifically on the effect of

racism and social inequality on health for the Washington Post. Akila, thanks so much for joining

us. Welcome to WNYC. Thank you for having me. Can we start with just the top line life expectancy

number in the United States? Before we pick it apart for different groups or compare it to other

countries or anything, what's the average life expectancy in the United States and how much

has that top line number average of everybody in the country fall in in recent years?

Well, you know, so the most recent number has not been finalized yet, right? So the 2022

number, but when you're looking at 2021, it's like 76.4 years. So about 76 years for the average

person in the U.S., that's what the life expectancy is, and that's like the lowest number since the

mid-1990s. And if we look back, say, 100 years, like I hypothetically did in the intro, and we kind

of picked a number out of a hat, you know, would you have expected to live to 50? Or what do you think

the number would have been 100 years ago if your research has given you that? Well, I mean, at the

previous turn of the century, right? The turn of the century now is 2000, but if we were going back

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