Life expectancy figures for all U.S. residents improved a little between 2006 and 2007, and years-remaining levels for centenarians rebounded from a slump that started around 1980.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has included the newest government data on. life expectancy in a National Vital Statistics Reports issue giving the U.S. life tables for 2007.
Overall U.S. life expectancy at birth increased to 77.9 years in 2007, up from 77.7 years in 2006.
Life expectancy at birth improved because of decreases in mortality from many major killers, including heart disease, cancer, influenza and pneumonia, and also from stroke and diabetes, according to Elizabeth Arias, a researcher in the CDC's Vital Statistics Division.
Researchers break the mortality and life expectancy down many different ways.
One indicator they look at is average number of years of life remaining.
For a 65-year-old, for example, the average number of years of life remaining is 18.6, up from 17.8 for the period from 1999 to 2001.
The average number of years of life remaining has increased for 65-year-olds for every period included in the years-remaining table starting in the 1900-1902 period.
Possibly because of data collection problems, the average years of life remaining for centenarians – people who have reached age 100 – peaked at 2.73 years in the 1978-1981 period. The average fell to 2.46 years in 1989-1991 and to 2.27 years in 1999-2001.
In 2007, the average number of years centenarians can expect to live increased slightly, to 2.3 years.
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