Life expectancy down in the US due to overdoses, suicides, CDC says

The life expectancy in the United States dropped between 2016 and 2017, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The CDC says that the decline was caused by an increase in suicides and drug overdoses. In 2017, there were more than 70,000 drug overdoses, which is an all-time high.

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Overall, the suicide rate in the U.S. increased by 3.7 percent from 2016 to 2017.

Fortunately, the increasing death rate didn't hold across all race and gender groups. Black and Hispanic men, along with Hispanic women, saw no significant changes in their death rates year over year.

Death rates for both white men and white women, however, increased by 0.6 percent and 0.9 percent, respectively.

The CDC says a person born in the U.S. in 2017 can expect to live 78.6 years, down 0.1 percent from 2016.