Australians enjoy longer lives than Britons, Americans

Australians are outliving people from other high-income English-speaking countries, a study suggests. People from Australia have a lower death rate for certain cancers and from heart and lung diseases, researchers say. They also have fewer deaths from drugs or alcohol. The study, published in the journal BMJ Open, examined life expectancies in Australia compared with the UK, Ireland, the United States, Canada and New Zealand. The researchers, from the University of Southern California and Pennsylvania State University in the US, concluded Australia is the "clear best performer" when it comes to life expectancy at birth. They found that, in 2018, baby girls in Australia could expect to live for up to four years longer than their peers in the other countries studied. Baby boys might live for almost five years longer. The academics said Australia has a four- to five-year life expectancy advantage over the US and a one- to 2.5-year advantage over Canada, New Zealand, Ireland and the UK. "Australia has achieved the highest life expectancy among Anglophone countries and tends to rank well in international comparisons of life expectancy overall," the authors wrote. "Australia performs particularly well in terms of mortality from external causes (including drug- and alcohol-related deaths), screenable/treatable cancers, cardiovascular disease and influenza/pneumonia and other respiratory diseases compared with other countries."