Life expectancy across the nation has dropped slightly due to an increase in deaths from alcohol abuse, opioids and suicide. According to a new report, the troubling trend is significant in Wisconsin as life expectancy has dropped for the second year in a row.
The life expectancy for a baby born in Wisconsin between 2015 and 2017 is 80 years, down from 80.2 years for babies born two years earlier.
The report by the nonpartisan Wisconsin Policy Forum (WPF) was released Monday. It found that while Wisconsin is mirroring a national trend in shorter life expectancies overall, the state loses ground due to opioid- and alcohol-related deaths and increased mortality among African Americans in the state.
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The group that conducted the research mostly used data from the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention from 1999 to 2017 and information from the Wisconsin Department of Health Services. The report shows drug and alcohol deaths in the state have more than tripled in the span of the years researched. The state’s drug death rate has more than quadrupled since 1999.
Mark Sommerhauser is the communications director and a policy researcher at WPF. He said three findings stood out to the nonprofit: the alcohol-related death rates, opioid death rate in Milwaukee County and the increase in mortality rates in African Americans.
The report showed that alcohol is a growing killer in Wisconsin. In 2017, the states alcohol-related death rate doubled what it was in 1999.
In Milwaukee County, opioid death rates are higher than the statewide rate.
“The picture that comes across in Milwaukee County is a problem with opioids that cuts across racial lines,” Sommerhauser said. “When you look at the white opioid death rate, the black opioid death rate in Milwaukee County both are much higher then the national average.”
The opioid death rate for all races was more than twice the statewide rate between 2013 and 2017.
Sommerhauser explained that the national mortality rates in African Americans has decreased by 6 percent, but in Wisconsin the mortality rate has increased by 25 percent.
“It seems clear to use that there needs to be a renewed focus on measures that can be taken in terms of public policy to tackle the death rates for drugs, alcohol, and suicide,” he said.
Editor’s note: This story has been updated with original report by WPR.
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