US life expectancy drops for third year in a row

Time -  U.S. life expectancy dropped in 2017 for the third consecutive year, as deaths by suicide and drug overdose continue to claim more American lives. The average American could expect to live to 78.6 years old in 2017, down from 78.7 in 2016, according to data released Thursday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Center for Health Statistics. That decline may be modest, but it marks the third year in a row that life expectancy at birth has fallen — a noteworthy phenomenon, since the previous multiyear drop recorded by the NCHS was in the early 1960s.