U.S. average life expectancy has surpassed 78 years for the first time, the government reported Wednesday. The increase is largely due to falling mortality rates in most of the leading causes of death, federal health officials said. Despite the improvement, the United States lags behind about 30 other countries in estimated life span, according to World Health Organization (WHO) data. Japan leads on the WHO list with a life expectancy of 83 for children born in 2006. Switzerland and Australia also are near the top of the list. The U.S. increase in 2006 is due mainly to falling mortality rates for nine of the 15 leading causes of death, including heart disease, cancer, accidents, and diabetes. “I think the most surprising thing is that we had declines in just about every major cause of death,” said Robert Anderson, who oversaw work on the report for the National Center for Health Statistics. U.S. life expectancy has been steadily rising, usually by two to three months from year to year. This year's jump of four months is an unusually rapid improvement, health officials said. The report also noted that the U.S. infant mortality rate fell more than 2 percent to 6.7 infant deaths per 1,000 births, down from 6.9.
