The United States has the lowest life expectancy among all the G7 countries

The United States has the lowest life expectancy of all the G7 nations, according to a troubling periodic table.

Seventy years ago, people in America could have been expected to live to the age of 68, with the country ranked 13th in the world behind the likes of Norway, Sweden and Denmark.

Although the average person now lives a decade longer than they did in 1950, progress has stalled compared to other developed countries.

Since then the United States has fallen to 53rd in the world ranking.

Britain fared poorly as well, dropping from 10th to 36th in the United Nations’ list of 200 countries.

Experts noted that the slow progress is likely due to widening health inequalities, which has led to poorer social groups dying out before the rich.

Academics from the University of Oxford and the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine examined global life expectancy rates between 1952 and 2021.

They paid special attention to the G-7 countries – the United Kingdom, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the United States – a group of countries with advanced economies that account for about half of the world’s economic output.

They found that over seven decades, the United States has performed the worst of all the G7 countries.

While life expectancy has increased since the start of the study, similar countries have seen larger increases, according to the findings published in the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine.

Life expectancy in the United Kingdom increased from 68.63 years in 1950 to 80.43 years in 2020, compared to 68.06 and 77.41 years, respectively, in the United States.

However, these improvements have failed to keep pace with countries like Norway and Sweden, where people can now expect to live to 83.20 and 82.43 respectively.

Meanwhile, the likes of Japan saw notable improvements, moving from 45th to 3rd in the rankings.

The authors said Britain’s decline in ranks took decades, including an increase in income inequality in the UK during and after the 1980s.

Professor Martin Mackey, of the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, said: ‘This rise has also seen an increase in the variance in life expectancy between different social groups.

“One of the reasons why the overall increase in life expectancy has slowed in the UK is that in recent years it has fallen for the poorest groups.”

Dr Lucinda Hyam, from the University of Oxford, said: “The rankings show that the only country in the G7 that has performed worse than the UK is the US.”

Dr Hiam added, “In the short term, the government is facing an acute crisis that must be addressed. However, the relative deterioration in the health of the population is evidence that all is not well.

It has historically been an early sign of severe political and economic problems.

This new analysis indicates that the problems facing the UK are deep-rooted and raise serious questions about the country’s course.