For the first time in more than 40 years, life expectancy in Canada stopped increasing from 2016 to 2017, in large part because of the high number of drug overdose deaths. The age to which a person can expect to live decreased for the second year in a row in the western province of British Columbia, where the opioid crisis is worst. Life expectancy there decreased by 0.3 years for men and 0.1 years for women, according to government statistics.
If the 2017 pattern continues, on average, women in Canada can expect to live to age 84 and men to 80.
The average life expectancy in Canada is 84 for women and 80 for men. (iStock)
World life expectancy increases
Life expectancy continued to increase in the provinces of Newfoundland and Labrador, Prince Edward Island, Quebec and Saskatchewan and in the northern territory of Nunavut. It remained the same in Ontario.
According to the World Health Organization, global life expectancy was 72 years in 2016. It has been going up due to better sanitation, nutrition, vaccination, antibiotics and other advancements in medicine. Life expectancy is generally taken as a measure of the population’s well being.
Between the beginning January 2016 and September 2018 more than 10,000 deaths in Canada were related to opioid use.
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