Women in the United States can expect to live nearly six years longer than men, as disparities in deaths from COVID-19 and drug overdoses drive the life expectancy gap to the widest it’s been in decades. In 2021, life expectancy for women was 79.3 years, compared with 73.5 years for men — a gap of 5.8 years, the largest since 1996. Between 2010 and 2019, the largest drivers of the growing life expectancy gap were higher mortality rates among men for unintentional injuries, diabetes, suicide, homicide and heart disease. Some of that gap was offset by more similar mortality rates from cancer and Alzheimer’s disease among men and women. Increasing maternal deaths among women and some improvement in cancer deaths among men “partially mitigated the increasing gap,” according to the study.

Source: CNN November 13, 2023 21:53 UTC