CHICAGO (AP) – Guns, drugs and cars contribute substantially to the life-expectancy gap between the United States and other developed nations, a study found.
Deaths from old-age ailments sometimes get more attention in longevity research, but deaths from these three causes tend to happen at younger ages, contributing to many decades of life lost, the researchers said.
Data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show injuries including violence, car crashes and drug poisonings and overdoses are the leading cause of deaths for Americans up to the age of 44.
U.S. death rates from these three injury categories exceed those in 12 other developed countries included in the study: Austria, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden and the United Kingdom, the researchers said.
Among men, life expectancy in 2012 in those countries was 78.6 years versus 76.4 in the United States. Injury-related deaths accounted for almost half of that difference, the study found.