Average life expectancy is about the broadest indicator of a population's health that we have. In the simplest terms, it tells us if a given generation is doing better than the one that came before it.
In modern history, average life expectancies for most nations on Earth as well as for the human species as a whole have consistently trended up.
Thanks to improved hygiene, education, technology, and medical care, among other factors, each generation of humans lives longer than the previous.
And so, in the developed world, something has to be very wrong in a given region for its population's average life expectancy to begin to decline.
British Columbia is one area where that is happening, according to an October 23 report by Canada's chief public-health officer.
"On the whole, life expectancy has been steadily increasing in Canada over many years and it is comparable to other high income countries," the document reads. "Alarmingly, this is expected to change. For the first time in recent decades, life expectancy in British Columbia is decreasing, due to harms associated with opioid overdoses."
B.C.'s epidemic of drug-overdose deaths is now so severe that illicit narcotics are single-handedly responsible for dragging down the average life expectancy for the population of the entire province.
"Recent data from B.C. show that life expectancy dropped by 0.12 year from 2014 to 2016 due to deaths involving substances, with over 90% of these related to opioids," the report continues. "This dip in life expectancy was more pronounced in men and in poorer neighbourhoods."
bit.ly/2SqQmqp via @georgiastraight
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