Why is American Life Expectancy So Low?

After years of a constant climb, the US is appearing to be lagging behind in life expectancy, even declining further following the coronavirus pandemic. In this video, we explore what factors are driving this negative slump in life expectancy as well as how hard it would be to overturn it (hint: it's pretty hard).

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[Anastasia-lsdd]

i am socked that you didn't mention the lack of affordable healthcare, and it's certainly the cause of the massive drop during the pandemic

[dereklenzen]

As an American, I would like to add some additional points. The first is that most American have unhealthy diets and lifestyles. The design of cities and suburbs is such that most people must drive cars instead of walk for even routine errands such as buying basic groceries. (In fact, due to the way streets are designed and the increasingly-ubiquitous oversized pickups and SUV's, it can be downright dangerous to be a pedestrian in many towns.) In addition, the consumption of junk food and sugary drinks is off the charts, and the adult obesity rate now stands over 40%. I'm often shocked when I drive to the store and in the checkout lines there are morbidly obese parents with obese children buying multiple 3-liter bottles of soda and bags stuffed full of candy and other highly-processed food. There is simply no health discipline with many people. In addition to the unhealthy lifestyles, many Americans with no health insurance or insurance with a huge deductible choose not to seek medical care for a health problem until it becomes a full-blown crisis due to fear of medical bankruptcy.

[EverettBurger]

I taught overseas for much of my adult life. When I moved back to the US a few years ago, I realized two things even before I left the airport upon arrival:

1. We are very overweight
2. Our mass media is saturated with prescription drug advertisements.

Is there a correlation between the two?

[EllieD.Violet]

1) lack of affordable health care

2) 'food' that couldn't even be imported into the EU due to poor quality

3) poor education of the majority of the population, also when it comes to a healthy lifestyle

[thechosenone]

Americans: Make healthcare too expensive too use.
Eat like they have free healthcare.
Drive everywhere, don't walk or exercise.
Also Americans: Why are we dying young?

[galuh.mp]

The car dependcy of us city is definitely a big factor of why their life expectancy is like that

[A]

Cuisine: Unhealthy
Car: Dependency
Healthcare: Expensive and predatory
Guns: Yes
School shootings: Yes

Hotel, Trivago.

[vals.]

I don’t think the USA car crashes are due to the licensing at a younger age, I think it would be better to consider that they drive to go everywhere and that the roads are easy to drive on because they are wider and more straight than in Europe. The issue with making driving easier is that can also create a false sense of security and cause you to stop focusing on the road.

[kingszeno]

Notjustbikes made a great video about American cars, and how bad they are for safety. It's not the early driving age, it's the distance from the ground/low visibility, bad crumple zones and car centric design

[wendypierce]

As a Gen Xer I am keenly aware of this phenomenon. I’ve actually seen more deaths this year than for the entirety of the pandemic. Depression underlies many of the risky behaviors you mentioned. Also it was incredibly difficult to manage any chronic conditions during the pandemic.

[DavidMuresan]

Opioid crisis and suicides. I graduated in 2012 from a very nice and peaceful little rural high school in northeast Ohio and of the 63 kids I’ve graduated with only 44 of us are still alive between overdoes, car accidents and suicides 😢

[dominikgadze]

Error: at 1:50 you compare the life expectancy of the US in 2021 to that of the US of 2003, but you said UK. For the UK it wouldve been 1997.

[eksbocks]

1. Preventable diseases
2. Paywalls for everyone. Even the poor.
3. Strong dependence on cars
4. Conflict and bullying

5. Everyone is expected to solve everything themselves. Even if there's a lot working against them.

[IronWolf]

Some other factors are low access to cheap health care and healthy lifestyles. When I was in California, they were more concerned about how food could contain cancers but in Australia, we have a food rating system from 1 to 5 based on how healthy the food is, such as on cereals, drinks and fast foods.

Plus, it is a common stereotype that most Americans have a lack of education and/or aren't educated to save themselves. This could be the major issue with drugs, gun violence and mental instabilities

[theidioticbgilson]

the imapact of ke$ha on american society has been devistating

[anneaylmer]

Poor diet, poor education, poor healthcare. This, in what is supposed to be the most advanced, and richest country in the world?

[richardmiddleton]

Obesity, guns, lack of social healthcare, substance abuse, stress take your pick...

[stefanocapparelli]

Unaffordable healthcare, legalisation of absurdly toxic chemicals for pesticides and food, increased poverty, car dependence, … I can keep going

[MrKapnoc]

It's surprising that the lack of affordable healthcare wasn't mentioned at all in this video

[linuxman]

No mention of obeisity and lack of universal health care. These have historically been the reasons for lagging