3 Things Are Killing Americans - Guns, Crashes & Drugs

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A new study suggests that car crashes, shootings, and drug overdoses are the main reasons why Americans' life expectancy is lower compared to other developed nations like Austria and the United Kingdom. The report was published Feb. 9 in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

For the study, the researchers used data from the U.S. National Vital Statistics System and the World Health Organization Mortality Database to calculate death rates according to age, sex, cause, Reuters reported. The data was compared to the U.S. and other 12 high-income countries: Austria, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain, the U.K. and Sweden.

It was found out that American's life expectancy is around two years shorter than residents of the mentioned countries. For U.S. men, the difference translates into 76.4 years against 78.6 years from other nations. While in women, it translates into 81.2 years in the U.S. and 83.4 in other nations.

More so, researchers also found that there were 865 deaths per 100,000 men in the U.S. in 2012, while there were only 772 per 100,000 men in other nations in the same year. This trend can also be seen among women with a rate of 625 deaths per 100,000 in the U.S. against 494 deaths per 100,000 women in other countries.

Notably, gun deaths were a major factor among men with 18.4 deaths per 100,000 men versus 1 per 100,000 in the comparison countries. While among women, drug-related death accounted most of the difference with the U.S rate of 10 per 100,000 compared to fewer than 2 for every 100,000 in other comparison countries.

"About 50 percent of the gap for men and about 20 percent of women is due just to those three causes of injury," said lead researcher Andrew Fenelon to U.S. News. He is a senior service fellow at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's National Center for Health Statistics.

Fenelon's team found that shootings accounted for 21 percent of the difference for men, while legal and illicit drug poisoning accounted for 14 percent, and motor vehicular crashes accounted for 13 percent.

Among women, the causes accounted for 19 percent of the difference with four percent from shootings, nine percent from drug poisoning and six percent from car crashes, according to the findings.

Taken as a whole, all three causes accounted for six percent of deaths among men and three percent of women reports U.S. News. This death rate in the U.S. is higher compared to any of the comparison countries.

CBS News interview with Jessica Ho, a Duke University sociologist, revealed that improving U.S. life expectancy should address the problem of premature deaths. Strong policies for gun laws, safe transportation, and drug use should be in place to address the issue.

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