U.S. life expectancy rose to 79 years in 2024 - the highest mark in American history.  Good and bad news.

     It's the result of not only the dissipation of the COVID-19 pandemic, but also waning death rates from all the nation's top killers, including heart disease, cancer and drug overdoses.  What's more, preliminary statistics suggest a continued improvement in 2025.

     "It's pretty much good news all the way around," said Robert Anderson, of the National Center for Health Statistics at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which released the 2024 data on Thursday.  Life expectancy, a fundamental measure of a population's health, is an estimate of the average number of years a baby born in a given year might expect to live, given death rates at that time.

     For decades, U.S. life expectancy rose at least a little bit almost every year, thanks to medical advances and public health measures. It peaked in 2014, just shy of 79 years.  It was relatively flat for several years before plunging as the COVID-19 pandemic killed more than 1.2 million Americans. In 2021, life expectancy fell to just under 76 1/2 years. It has been rebounding since.