For the first time in four years, life expectancy in the U.S. has gone up. The increase is small — just a month.
But it marks at least a temporary halt to a downward trend.
The rise is mostly due to lower death rates for cancer and drug overdoses.
The government calculation released Thursday is for 2018. On average, an infant born that year is expected to live about 78 years and 8 months.
For decades, U.S. life expectancy was on the upswing, but then for a four-year period it declined or held steady.
