疾控中心：鸦片类毒品危机将来未来一百年中严重影响美国人均寿命 [美国媒体]

The average American life expectancy ticked downward for the second straight year in 2016, on the back of surging drug overdose deaths, according to data released Thursday by the National Center for Health Statistics at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. And while the nation hasn’t experienced a back-to-back drop in life expectancy since the 1960s, the CDC says the opioid crisis is shaping up to extend this decline for a third consecutive year, a milestone that hasn’t been seen since the Spanish flu pandemic in 1918.

根据美国疾病控制与预防中心下属机构国家卫生统计中心在周四发布的数据显示，急剧增长的药物滥用所导致的死亡拉低了2016年美国国民的平均寿命，这也是平均寿命连续第二年的下滑。尽管美国自从1960年以来从未发生过连续两年以上人均寿命下滑的情况，CDC发布称目前的鸦片类毒品危机的现状正使得这种下跌的趋势延续至第三个年头。这种标志性的下跌自从1918年西班牙流感流行事件以来为首次出现。



U.S. life expectancy fell to an average of 78.6 years in 2016, dropping 0.1 for the second year in a row, according to the CDC report. The slide was driven by higher death rates among young and middle-aged Americans, with those aged 25-34 experiencing the largest increase. The death rate among Americans aged 65 and older actually inched downward between 2015 and 2016.

根据CDC的报告，2016年，美国国民人均寿命降至78.6岁，同比下跌0.1岁。人均寿命的下降归咎于青年与中年人水涨船高的死亡率，而死亡率的上升25 - 34岁这个年龄区间上最为明显。事实上，65岁及以上老人的死亡率在2015至2016年间还略有下降。

The overall decline in longevity came as drug overdose deaths exploded in 2016 to a total of 63,600, around 42,000 of which involved opioids, according to CDC data. Although these numbers have been rising steadily since 1999, the 21 percent jump in deaths over 2015 was the largest annual increase so far. Drug overdose deaths involving synthetic opioids like fentanyl and fentanyl analogs have increased an average of 88 percent each year from 2013 to 2016, helping to drive the surge.

根据CDC提供的数据，国民寿命总体下降的原因是2016年间爆炸式增长的毒品过量死亡事件，在全年63600例死亡事件中，大约42000例是由鸦片类毒品过量所引发的。尽管这一统计数据自从1999年来就呈现稳步上升的态势，2015年21%的增长率却是近年来增长率最高的一次。在2013至2016年间，过量使用的合成类鸦片药物，例如芬太尼和芬太尼类似物，所导致的死亡以平均每年88%的速度在上升，这一趋势使得毒品过量死亡的现状不断恶化。

“The drug overdose deaths seem to be driving what we’re seeing,” said Bob Anderson, chief of the mortality statistics branch at the CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics. “It’s certainly a key factor in the decline over the past two years.”

“毒品过量致死似乎成为了我们现在看到的趋势的主因”，CDC国家卫生统计中心死亡统计分部的总长Bob Anderson这样说道，“这的确是过去两年人均寿命下降的关键性因素。”

The United States hasn’t seen two straight years of falling life expectancy since 1962 and 1963, amid a deadly outbreak of influenza. And the one-year decline in life expectancy measured last year marked a first since 1993, at the height of the AIDS epidemic.

自从1962-1963年间致死的流感暴发之后，美国就没有经历过人均寿命想持续两年的下跌。而去年首次人均寿命降低整整一年则可以与1993年艾滋病的流行相媲美。

Although the U.S. has grappled with spikes in drug deaths before, the current overdose epidemic is also taking place as the rate of reduction in heart disease deaths begins to slow.

尽管美国过去也经历过毒品过量死亡的急剧增长，但是当前频发的毒品过量事件却是建立在心血管疾病死亡率下降速度逐渐减缓的前提下。

“In the past, those drug mortality increases have been more than completely offset by declines in cardiovascular disease mortality ― heart disease and stroke mostly,” said Anderson. “But now those declines have slowed down and kind of flattened out. And as a result, these increases in drug overdose mortality are dominating the picture for overall mortality.”

“在过去，那些毒品过量致死事件可以完全被心血管疾病——主要是心脏病和中风——所导致的死亡率降低完全抵消”，Anderson说道。“但是现在心血管疾病死亡率的下降速率开始减缓而且正逐渐稳定下来，因此，毒品过量致死正在成为总体死亡率的主导因素”。

As concerned as he is by the 2015 and 2016 data, Anderson says it looks like it could be the beginning of a longer trend.

Anderson对2015和2016年的数据充满了担忧。根据他的说法，这看上去更像是一个长期趋势的开始。

“What we’re seeing in our surveillance system for 2017 so far doesn’t look good, doesn’t look any better than 2016,” he said. “Assuming that things kind of stay the way they are with other causes of death, and the drug overdose mortality goes up, I think we’re in for more of the same and maybe a third year in a row of declining life expectancy, which we haven’t seen for 100 years, since the Spanish flu in 1916, 1917 and 1918.”

“我们当前在健康监控系统里看到的2017年数据并不是十分乐观，甚至并不比2016年更好”，他说道。“假设其他事件导致的死亡率大抵维持不变，而毒品过量致死的死亡率持续上升，我认为今年的情况和去年比不会有太大不同，而且今年甚至可能成为“百年一遇”的连续第三个平均寿命下降的年头。上一次出现这种情况是1916， 1917和1918年的西班牙流感流行。”

It would be a grim marker for the U.S., matching a period in which more than one-quarter of the U.S. population reportedly got infected by the disease, leaving some 675,000 Americans dead. Although the current trajectory is troubling, the scale is quite different, as the Spanish flu ultimately sent the average American life expectancy plummeting a dozen years, to just 39 years, in 1918.

当前毒品过量的现状可以与当年西班牙流感导致四分之一人口感染此疾病的时候所媲美。西班牙流感在当时夺走了67500名美国人的生命。尽管当前的态势令人担忧，但是影响程度依然有很大的不同。在1918年，西班牙流感让美国的人均寿命降至39岁，降低了12岁。

Thursday’s report could inject new urgency into President Donald Trump’s plan to address the opioid epidemic. Trump formally declared a public health emergency for the crisis in October, though he has faced criticism for not tackling the problem more aggressively.

周四的这份报告可以为川普总统着手解决鸦片类药物成瘾的计划再加一把火。川普总统曾经在十月正式宣布毒品成瘾的现状已经达到了公共健康的紧急状态，尽管他也因为未能用更激进的手段解决此问题而受到批评。

The public health emergency fund currently holds only around $57,000, according to the Department of Health and Human Services, and Trump has not allocated the level of funding experts say is necessary to truly address the problem. Last month, the White House placed the true cost of the opioid epidemic at over $500 billion in 2015.

根据健康与人类服务中心发布的数据，目前为止公共卫生基金只有区区57000美元经费，而川普总统并没有采纳专家意见拨出足够的款项来解决上述问题。上个月，白宫根据2015年的数据，就解决鸦片类毒品成瘾问题所给出的的预估数字是五千亿美元。

“We really do need to get a handle on this, and I hope that this data will be of use to policymakers in formulating something that will take care of this problem. These are deaths that should be entirely preventable,” said Anderson. “The message I want to send is that this is problem for our nation and we need to do something about it.” 

“我们急需开始着手处理这样的事情，而且我希望这些数据能够被政策制定者所用以面对当前的这些问题。这些死亡事件完全是可以避免的”，Anderson说道。“我希望传递的信息是，这对于我们的国家而言是一个问题，而且我们需要做点什么来解决这个问题”。