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  • OUTLOOK

Tracing the US opioid crisis to its roots

Understanding how the opioid epidemic arose in the United States could help to predict how it might spread to other countries.
  1. Sarah DeWeerdt

    1. Sarah DeWeerdt is a science journalist in Seattle, Washington.

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In 2015, something happened in the United States that hadn’t occurred there in the past 100 years: life expectancy entered a period of sustained decline. According to the World Bank Group, the country’s average life expectancy fell from 78.8 years in 2014 to 78.7 years in 2015, and then to 78.5 years in 2016 and 2017.

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Nature 573, S10-S12 (2019)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-019-02686-2

This article is part of Nature Outlook: Opioids, an editorially independent supplement produced with the financial support of third parties. About this content.

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