美国国家公共电台 NPR Life Expectancy Drops Again As Opioid Deaths Surge In U.S.

 

RACHEL MARTIN, HOST:

The federal government has just released the latest statistics on life expectancy¹ in the United States, and the news isn't good. In fact, it's pretty grim. NPR health correspondent Rob Stein has details.

ROB STEIN, BYLINE²: For decades, America was a place where each generation tended to do better than the one before it. Many parents watched their children grow up to be richer, better educated, healthier, and Robert Anderson of the National Center for Health Statistics says, for the most part, live longer.

ROBERT ANDERSON: Life expectancy measures sort of the overall status of a population, and it gives you sort of an overall sense of what's going on. And life expectancy's been increasing pretty steadily³ since 1950.

STEIN: But not anymore. Life expectancy dropped in 2016 again. That means it's now fallen for two years in a row.

ANDERSON: Any decline in life expectancy is pretty significant - doesn't happen very often.

STEIN: The last time was 1993 because of the AIDS epidemic⁴. And life expectancy hasn't dropped two years in a row since the early 1960s.

ANDERSON: Prior to the '60s, you know, you have to go back to the 1920s to see life expectancy decline in two years in a row.

STEIN: But from 2014 to 2016, life expectancy fell from 78.9 years to 78.6.

ANDERSON: For any individual, that's not a whole lot. But when you're talking about it in terms of a population, you're talking about a significant number of potential lives that aren't being lived.

STEIN: So why is this happening? A big reason is the opioid epidemic. Another new report out today shows that more than 63,000 Americans died from overdoses in 2016 alone.

ANDERSON: It's just really dramatically increased. The increase from 2015 to 2016 is far and above greater than any of the one-year increases that we've seen to this point.

STEIN: Which means that not only is the opioid epidemic bad and not getting any better, it's actually getting worse. It's accelerating.

ANDERSON: I think we should be really alarmed. I mean, I'm not prone⁵ to dramatic statements, but the drug overdose issue I think is a public health crisis, and it really needs to be addressed. We need to get a handle on it.

STEIN: Other experts agree.

ARUN HENDI: I was pretty shocked to see that our life expectancy has declined for the second year in a row.

STEIN: That's Arun Hendi of the University of Southern California.

HENDI: I think we should be very worried. We need to cut off the supply of drugs flooding the market, particularly heroin⁶ and fentanyl. Second, we need to provide better treatment and more resources for people in those areas that are most affected⁷ by the drug overdose epidemic. And third, we need to improve access to high-quality health care.

STEIN: But some experts say the opioid epidemic is just part of a larger problem. Anne Case is a researcher at Princeton who's been studying what she calls deaths of despair.

ANNE CASE: It's also a crisis in which people are killing⁸ themselves in much larger numbers - whites especially - and where deaths from alcohol have been rising, as well. So we think of it all being signs that something is really wrong. And whatever it is that's really wrong is happening nationwide.

STEIN: And whatever's happening nationwide may be a sense of frustration⁹ and hopelessness about crummy jobs with no raises, security or decent benefits and everything that comes with that.

CASE: They don't have a good job. They don't have a marriage that supports them. They may have children that they do or don't see. They have a much more fragile existence than they would've had a generation ago. It may be that the deaths from drugs, from suicide, from alcohol are related to the fact that people don't have stability and a hope for the future that they might have had in the past.

STEIN: Rob Stein, NPR News.

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1 expectancy   

n.期望，预期，（根据概率统计求得）预期数额

参考例句：

• Japanese people have a very high life expectancy.日本人的平均寿命非常长。
• The atomosphere of tense expectancy sobered everyone.这种期望的紧张气氛使每个人变得严肃起来。

2 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

3 steadily   

adv.稳定地；不变地；持续地

参考例句：

• The scope of man's use of natural resources will steadily grow.人类利用自然资源的广度将日益扩大。
• Our educational reform was steadily led onto the correct path.我们的教学改革慢慢上轨道了。

4 epidemic   

n.流行病；盛行；adj.流行性的，流传极广的

参考例句：

• That kind of epidemic disease has long been stamped out.那种传染病早已绝迹。
• The authorities tried to localise the epidemic.当局试图把流行病限制在局部范围。

5 prone   

adj.(to)易于…的，很可能…的；俯卧的

参考例句：

• Some people are prone to jump to hasty conclusions.有些人往往作出轻率的结论。
• He is prone to lose his temper when people disagree with him.人家一不同意他的意见,他就发脾气。

6 heroin   

n.海洛因

参考例句：

• Customs have made their biggest ever seizure of heroin.海关查获了有史以来最大的一批海洛因。
• Heroin has been smuggled out by sea.海洛因已从海上偷运出境。

7 affected   

adj.不自然的，假装的

参考例句：

• She showed an affected interest in our subject.她假装对我们的课题感到兴趣。
• His manners are affected.他的态度不自然。

8 killing   

n.巨额利润；突然赚大钱，发大财

参考例句：

• Investors are set to make a killing from the sell-off.投资者准备清仓以便大赚一笔。
• Last week my brother made a killing on Wall Street.上个周我兄弟在华尔街赚了一大笔。

9 frustration   

n.挫折，失败，失效，落空

参考例句：

• He had to fight back tears of frustration.他不得不强忍住失意的泪水。
• He beat his hands on the steering wheel in frustration.他沮丧地用手打了几下方向盘。