Americans die younger than others in wealthy nations. What can we do about it?

City sign says "Zip Code Shouldn't Predict how long you live"
A recent report by the CDC found that American life expectancy is the lowest it’s been in two decades. There are a lot of reasons for this, including our poor diets, access to healthcare, guns, car crashes and the impact of COVID-19.
BMJ

A recent report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that American life expectancy is the lowest it’s been in two decades at 76.4 years.

And Americans live shorter lives than people in other wealthy nations like Germany, Japan and the United Kingdom. That’s across all demographic groups, meaning even the richest Americans live shorter lives than their counterparts in other countries. 

There are a lot of reasons for this, including poor diets, lack of access to health care, gun violence, car crashes and deaths from COVID-19. But there are also many potential solutions, some the United States could borrow from other countries.

three people in a radio studio
MPR News host Angela Davis talks in the studio with Colin Planalp and Paul Mellick about the decline in life expectancy and the solutions to help us live longer, healthier lives. Jeremy Ney joins them via phone.
Danelle Cloutier | MPR News

Guests:

  • Jeremy Ney is the author of American Inequality, a newsletter that uses data visualization to cover inequality in the United States. He was previously a macro policy strategist at the Federal Reserve. 

  • Colin Planalp is a senior research fellow at State Health Access Data Assistance Center, which is a state health policy research center in the University of Minnesota School of Public Health. 

  • Paul Mellick is an associate professor and the chair of the Department of Health and Exercise Science at the University of St. Thomas.

Create a More Connected Minnesota

MPR News is your trusted resource for the news you need. With your support, MPR News brings accessible, courageous journalism and authentic conversation to everyone - free of paywalls and barriers. Your gift makes a difference.