Life expectancy in the United States has dropped further as drug overdose deaths continue to climb and suicides increase, according to a US government report.
The drug overdose rate rose by 9.6% taking more than 70,000 lives in 2017, compared to 2016, while suicides climbed 3.7%, said the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS).
As a result, the NCHS reported the average life span dropped to "78.6 years, a decrease of 0.1 year from 2016".
Overall, the statistics show a "downward trend in life expectancy since 2014," a time period over which Americans have lost 0.3 years of life, said Robert Anderson, chief of the mortality statistics branch at the NCHS.
According to World Health Organization data released earlier this year, average life expectancy in Ireland is 81.5 years.
