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Racial Gap in Life Expectancy at All-Time Low (New York Times)

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June 8, 2012 • Reprints

A new report published in The Journal of the American Medical Association shows the life expectancy between whites and blacks in the U.S. has narrowed to the lowest point ever recorded. White men and woman can still expect to outlive black men and woman by three to five years, but the gap declined from 6.5 years to 5.4 years for the men and five years to 3.7-years for women between 2003 and 2008, according the report.  Death rates from unintentional poisonings rose 15% to 20% for black men and women and 60% to 75% for white men and women. Up to 90% of those poisonings were drug-related, said Sam Harper, an author of the study. “Everyone agrees that it’s a good thing for the racial gap in life expectancy to decrease,” he said. “But we don’t want to see the gap decline because of mortality increases among whites.”

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