(Image source: Health Affairs / New York Times )

BY STEVEN SPARKMAN

ANCHOR MEGAN MURPHY

A worrying new study on Americans’ life expectancy confirms what scientists have been saying for years — while overall life expectancy is going up, many Americans are being left behind.

“Today’s children may be the first in America’s history to have shorter lives than their parents.” ( Video via WZTV )

The study, first reported in the New York Times, says among white people without a high school diploma life expectancy is actually going down.

In the least-educated group, life expectancy for white women declined by five years between 1990 and 2008. That’s close to the drop Russian men saw after the fall of the Soviet Union. Life expectancy for white men declined three years over the period. ( via New York Times )

White people in all categories can still expect to live longer than black people, but black life expectancy is on the rise, even in the least-educated group. So why the reversal for white people? WFLD explains .

“Some explanations include a spike in prescription drug overdoses, higher rates of smoking and a steady increase of people who lack health insurance.”

The changes are hitting women harder than men. For one thing, women are smoking more while men are smoking less. The Times adds the new realities of American work and family life could also be to blame.

“Childbirth outside marriage has soared, increasing pressures on women who are more likely to be single parents. … The overwhelming majority of women now work, while fertility has remained higher than in European countries. For women in low-wage jobs, which are often less flexible, this could take a toll on health...”

As of 2006, 43 percent of white men and women in the non-diploma group lacked health insurance, compounding all of the health problems the group faces. But a writer for the Atlantic says there may be another explanation.

“...the number of Americans without a high school diploma has dropped dramatically since 1990, both shrinking the size of that pool and also making it more likely that they will be disadvantaged in other ways.”

According to the Human Mortality Database run by the University of California, Berkeley, the U.S. ranks dead last among developed countries for women’s life expectancy.