“Why America’s life expectancy is declining: Obesity, drugs, and social inequalities”

On April 25, United States President Joe Biden, 80, announced that he would stand for a second term in 2024. His declared opponent, Donald Trump, is 76 years old. The American political elite is one of the oldest in the world… while the life expectancy of its population continues to decline, at 76.1 years in 2021, four years less than in Europe. Between 2019 and 2021, it fell by 2.7 years.

Blame it on the calamitous management of the Covid, which caused nearly 3,300 deaths per million inhabitants, compared to 2,700 in the European Union. But beyond that, the fall has been underway for a decade, weighed down by premature deaths: one in 25 Americans aged 5 will not reach 40, four times more than in Europe. At issue: junk food, drugs, weapons, huge inequalities and low social coverage.

> Obesity is increasing

Across the Atlantic, 41% of adults are obese (compared to 17% on the Old Continent), a figure that continues to climb. This scourge promotes cardiovascular disease, the leading cause of death in the United States, and diabetes. Comorbidities have also increased the lethality of Covid.

> Opiates have killed more than 600,000 Americans in twenty years

In the 1990s, lab-promoted, mass-prescribed opiate painkillers took their toll. Especially in the rural middle classes, where patients who became addicted then turned to heroin and fentanyl. Opiates have killed more than 600,000 Americans in twenty years.

> The United States, the only developed country without a general social security system

The United States devotes 17% of its GDP to health, compared to 11% in Europe. But they remain the only developed country without a generalized social security system. Consultations and drugs are very expensive, coverage by the thousands of private health insurers is very heterogeneous, hospitals have high management costs, thus deterring a third of Americans from seeking treatment.