Originally Posted by
rickair7777
That is absolutely not true.
The US population AT BIRTH has a shorter lifespan than some other developed world populations.
Some of that is due to varied socioeconomic status across different groups and regions. But a great deal is due to young MEN dying young due to violence.
Life expectancy improves as you get older and your socio-economic status improves. Middle aged upper middle class people in nice neighborhoods (ie airline pilots) live quite a bit longer than the national average, entirely comparable to most other countries.
Can you describe the data that shows that our shortened life span is attributed to “young men dying due to violence”? It would take a heck a lot of young deaths, as you say, to decrease US longevity by 4-6 years. Doesn't seem plausible!
The other part, about socioeconomic factors, do play a role, but many of the countries that exceed our longevity are considered fairly poor. Americans, despite our advanced medical services, are not all that healthy.
Looking this up now - does show the spike (gun deaths, car accidents, and drugs & alcohol) as you said, but then we have a very high rate of vascular disease, metabolic & obesity related diseases, and don’t do all that well with cancer - these come on later in life. It also mentions high rates of Alzheimer’s in the US which isn’t helpful if we are trying to fly longer. So your response has some truth to it, but doesn’t appear to account for all of the shortened life span.