The Opioid Crisis And Life Expectancy In The U.S.

Since the 1990s, when opioids started to be grossly over-prescribed, almost 450,000 people have died as a direct result of opioid abuse in the United States. This study analyzes the role the opioid crisis has in the decreasing life expectancy in the United States, a troubling trend given the enormous and growing national healthcare expenditure. Employing a multiple decrement model and national life expectancy tables, this paper removes the opioid-related mortality and develops a new life expectancy model. The actuarial analysis of the observed and estimated life expectancies reveals the impact of opioid-related deaths: overall, U.S persons are losing 153 days of life. For some groups of the population the situation is even worse, such as for non-Hispanic white males whose life expectation is reduced by 261 days.