Expectativa de vida

É nos EUA. Num estudo circunscrito de municipalidades estado-unidenses constata-se que a expectativa de vida das mulheres desce pela primeira vez depois de 1918 (surto da gripe espanhola). Ver em Life Expectancy Drops for Some U.S. Women - washingtonpost.com. A questão central aqui é a de saber se este fenómeno, associado a factores comportamentais, não irá generalizar-se a nível de todos os EUA e dos países desenvolvidos - neste assunto o caso da ex-União Soviético tem sido um caso atípico; vejam o excerto:

"The trend appears to be driven by increases in death from diabetes, lung cancer, emphysema and kidney failure. It reflects the long-term consequences of smoking, a habit that women took up in large numbers decades after men did, and the slowing of the historic decline in heart disease deaths.

It may also represent the leading edge of the obesity epidemic. If so, women's life expectancy could decline broadly across the United States in coming years, ending a nearly unbroken rise that dates to the mid-1800s.

"I think this is a harbinger. This is not going to be isolated to this set of counties, is my guess," said Christopher J.L. Murray, a physician and epidemiologist at the University of Washington who led the study. It is being published in PLoS Medicine, an open-access journal of the Public Library of Science."