| Life expectancy in the United States reached an all-time high of 77.4 years in 2002, up from 77.2 years in 2001. Life expectancy for men, women, blacks and whites all increased, according to the report.
Deaths from the top two causes of death, heart disease and cancer, each decreased by 3 percent while deaths from stroke, the third leading cause of death, fell one percent. However, deaths from Alzheimer's disease, flu, pneumonia and blood poisoning all increased.
The positive news of increased life expectancy came with a bit of a downside, as the infant mortality rate rose slightly in 2002 for the first time in decades. Infant deaths rose from 6.8 infant deaths per 1,000 live births in 2001 to a rate of seven per 1,000 births in 2002.
Researchers suggested that the increase may be due to the fact that more American women are waiting until their 30s or 40s to have children, and then having multiple babies using fertility drugs. Or, it may be that infants who might have died prior to birth are surviving slightly longer and dying shortly after birth. They also mentioned that the increase was so slight it may have been a statistical blip.
Yahoo! News February 11, 2004
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