健康英语新闻:U.S. death rate drops to all-time low: CDC

LOS ANGELES, March 16 (Xinhua) -- The death rate in the United States reached an all-time low in 2009, dropping 2.3 percent from 2008, a newly released report said.

This was the 10th straight year of decline, demonstrating that Americans are living longer than ever, according to the report from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's National Center for Health Statistics.

The nation saw a drop from 758.7 deaths per 100,000 people in 2008 to 741 per 100,000 people in 2009 when 2,436,682 deaths were reported, said the report published by HealthDay News on Wednesday.

However, life expectancy for blacks remained unchanged -- 70.9 years for men and 77.4 years for women. The disparity between whites and blacks is now 4.3 years, representing a 0.2 percent increase from 2008 to 2009, the report found.

The report said that deaths fell in 10 of the 15 leading causes of death -- heart disease dropped 3.7 percent, cancer fell 1.1 percent, and stroke declined 4.2 percent.

Deaths from Alzheimer's disease, diabetes, chronic lower respiratory diseases and accidents all declined 4.1 percent, according to the report.

Deaths from flu and pneumonia fell 4.7 percent, and deaths from septicemia, a bacterial infection, decreased 1.8 percent, the report said.

Deaths from homicides fell 6.8 percent, but suicides increased from 35,933 in 2008 to 36,547 in 2009. Other than suicide, which overtook septicemia as the 10th leading cause of death, the ranking of the leading causes of death was unchanged from 2008 to 2009, the report noted.

Infant mortality hit a record low in 2009, falling from 6.59 deaths per 1,000 births in 2008 to 6.42, representing a 2.6 percent decrease, according to the report.

The report, however, did not give reasons for these trends.

Experts think behavioral changes, particularly the decline in smoking, are partly responsible for the improvements.

The report's lead author Kenneth Kochanek, a statistician at the center, said this is preliminary data, and the final data, which should be available this summer, may shed some light on the findings.