April 12 (UPI) -- Adults in the United States are up to three times more likely to die at a younger age than their peers in Europe, even before the COVID-19 pandemic, an analysis published Monday by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences found.
In 2017, more than 400,000 "excess" deaths -- or those above what would be expected in a normal year -- occurred in the United States, a 78% increase above the just over 226,000 reported in 2000, the data showed.
Those ages 25 to 54 accounted for about 40% of these excess deaths, the researchers said.
For every excess death in Europe in 2017, there was between 1.5 and 3.5 excess deaths in the United States in every age group younger than 80, according to the researchers.
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These differences in death rates are particularly pronounced among those age 20 to 34, with 30-year-olds in the United States suffering excess deaths at a rate more than three times higher than in Europe, the data showed.
Collectively, these excess deaths led to more than 13 million years of life lost -- compared to normal life expectancy -- with those ages 25 to 54 years accounting for nearly half of them, they said.
"The United States is suffering a very large number of deaths each year that wouldn't occur if we had Europe's age-specific death rates," study co-author Samuel H. Preston told UPI in an email.
"Lack of universal access to good health care contributes to the problem, but the major factors appear to be behavioral in origin: drug poisonings and obesity," said Preston, a professor of sociology at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia.
Just over 40% of adults in the United States are obese, or severely overweight, placing them at increased risk for heart disease, diabetes and other health problems that can shorten life, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
For this analysis, Preston and his colleagues compared age-specific mortality rates in the United States with the combined mortality rates of France, Germany, Italy, Spain and England and Wales.
Combined, the populations of the six European nations are comparable to that of the United States, or about 330 million people, the researchers said.
The excess mortality rate in the United States in 2017 represents both a larger number of deaths -- 400,000 -- and of lost years of life 13 million -- than those associated with COVID-19 in 2020, according to the researchers.
Last year, about 380,000 people nationally died from COVID-19, for a total of 4.4 million years of life lost compared to life expectancy.
Nearly 450,000 people died from the virus in the six regions in Europe included in the analysis in 2020, according to Johns Hopkins University.
Heading into 2020, life expectancy in the United States was 78 years, but the virus is expected to cause that figure to decline by about one year, based on figures from the CDC.
"Excess deaths [in the United States] have been evident throughout the 21st century but the number has increased sharply," Preston said.
"The gap appears to have worsened because of the pandemic," he said.
