US life expectancy at all-time high, but infant deaths up
(Agencies)
Updated: 2004-02-12 14:37

Life expectancy in the United States hit an all-time high in 2002, but the rate of infant mortality that year also increased, for the first time in 44 years, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said.

Life expectancy for 2002 reached a new high of 77.4 years, up from 77.2 in 2001, an across-the-board improvement for men and women, African Americans and whites, said a report by the CDC's National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS).

However, it said infant mortality increased from a rate of 6.8 deaths per 1,000 live births in 2001 to a rate of 7.0 per 1,000 in 2002, "the first year since 1958 that the rate has not declined or remained the same."

In 2002, there were a total of around four million births in the United States, and 27,977 infant deaths, said the report.

The rise in infant mortality was due to "an increase in neonatal infant deaths (less than 28 weeks old), particularly infants who died within the first week of life," said the report.

The three major causes of increased infant mortality, it said, were birth defects, disorders related to premature birth and low birth weight, and maternal complications during pregnancy.

Crib deaths, those from sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS), said the CDC, declined from 2001 to 2002, "continuing a long-term downward trend."

"Factors such as low birthweight, preterm births, and multiple births all increase the risk of infant death," said NCHS director Edward Sondik.

"This year, some of these risk factors may have played a significant role in the increase in infant deaths, but we'll know more as additional data become available," he said.

Overall, the US mortality rate dropped by 855 deaths from the previous year, uniformly across all ethnic groups except native Americans and non-Hispanic white females, whose death rates remained unchanged.

Among the leading causes of death, homicides dropped by 17 percent in 2002 from 2001, although that figure was considered distorted by the nearly 3,000 killed in the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on New York and Washington.

Among other leading causes of death, heart disease dropped three percent, stroke, nearly three percent, accidents and unintentional injuries, nearly two percent and cancer, one percent.

The report said there had been a continued decline in the preliminary age-adjusted death from HIV/AIDS, which dropped two percent.

HIV mortality, it said, "has decreased approximately 70 percent since 1995, but remains the fifth leading cause of death from people ages 25-44."

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