In Brief: Great expectations

In Brief

Great expectations

Published: November, 2007

We can't avoid dying, but Americans are putting it off longer than ever before, according to a batch of government health statistics.

Data for 2005 show that life expectancy at birth in the United States for that year was 77.9 years, a gain of just over seven years since 1970, although still considerably shorter than life expectancy in Japan and many European countries.

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