New research confirms an increase in U.S. life expectancy amid a sharp fall in the country’s COVID-19 toll and a rate of fatal drug overdoses that remained relatively steady.

Average life expectancy at birth in the U.S. rose 1.1 years from 76.4 years in 2021 to 77.5 years in 2022, according to the most recent figures released Thursday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Center for Health Statistics. The number of deaths totaled 3,279,857 – about 184,000 fewer than in 2021.

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The rise reverses two straight years of decline in U.S. life expectancy, during which the country saw its largest single-year drop since the 1940s. Yet it still accounts for less than half the time trimmed off amid the COVID-19 pandemic and puts the U.S. back to where it was in the early to mid-2000s,........

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