QuickStats: Life Expectancy at Birth, by Year --- United States, 1970--2003

Preliminary data indicate that life expectancy at birth in the United States reached a record high in 2003. Disparities in life expectancy at birth between non-Hispanic black and non-Hispanic white persons and males and females have narrowed in recent years. Additional information about life expectancy is available at http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/about/major/dvs/mortdata.htm.

SOURCES: Hoyert, DL, Kung HC, Smith BL. Deaths: preliminary data for 2003. Natl Vital Stat Rep 2005;53(15).

Kochanek KD, Murphy SL, Anderson RN. Deaths: final data for 2002. Natl Vital Stat Rep 2004;53(5).

Use of trade names and commercial sources is for identification only and does not imply endorsement by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. References to non-CDC sites on the Internet are provided as a service to MMWR readers and do not constitute or imply endorsement of these organizations or their programs by CDC or the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. CDC is not responsible for the content of pages found at these sites. URL addresses listed in MMWR were current as of the date of publication.

Disclaimer   All MMWR HTML versions of articles are electronic conversions from ASCII text into HTML. This conversion may have resulted in character translation or format errors in the HTML version. Users should not rely on this HTML document, but are referred to the electronic PDF version and/or the original MMWR paper copy for the official text, figures, and tables. An original paper copy of this issue can be obtained from the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office (GPO), Washington, DC 20402-9371; telephone: (202) 512-1800. Contact GPO for current prices.

Date last reviewed: 4/14/2005