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Latvia has shortest life expectancy among OECD member states

BC, Riga, 13.11.2017.Print version
Latvia has the shortest life expectancy among the 35 members of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), writes LETA/AFP, according to the new edition of Health at a Glance published by the organization on November 10th.

Life expectancy in Latvia is 74.6 years. For the country's male population, life expectancy is 69.7 years, and for women it is 79.5 years. Life expectancy of Latvian men is the shortest among the OECD member states. As the life expectancy of Latvian women, two other countries - Hungary and Mexico - have worse results.




But the overall situation in the OECD member states is quite good. Healthier lifestyles and higher incomes have helped increase life expectancy in the 35 OECD nations by ten years in the past half century. According to the OECD's Health at a Glance 2017 report, the average life expectancy throughout the OECD countries now stands at 80.6 years, an increase of more than ten years since 1970.


"Healthier lifestyles, higher incomes and better education have all contributed to boost life expectancy in recent decades. Better health care has also helped," the OECD said in its report.


The longest-living are the Japanese and the Swedish. Life expectancy at birth in those two countries was put at 83.9 years, with Spain and Switzerland not far off on 83 years. At the other end of the scale of the OECD countries is Latvia, with a much lower life expectancy of 74.6 years and Mexico on 75 years.






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