A recent report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that American life expectancy is the lowest it’s been in two decades at 76.4 years.

And Americans live shorter lives than people in other wealthy nations like Germany, Japan and the United Kingdom. That’s across all demographic groups, meaning even the richest Americans live shorter lives than their counterparts in other countries. 

There are a lot of reasons for this, including poor diets, lack of access to health care, gun violence, car crashes and deaths from COVID-19. But there are also many potential solutions, some the United States could borrow from other countries.

Coming up at 9 a.m. on Wednesday, MPR News host Angela Davis talks with three experts about the decline in life expectancy and solutions to help us live longer and healthier lives. 

We want to hear from you, too. What are your thoughts on Americans dying sooner than people in other wealthy nations? Have you made a healthy change to your lifestyle in hope of living longer? Call us at 651-227-6000 or 800-242-2828 during the 9 a.m. hour of the show or leave Angela a message on Facebook.

Guests:

• Jeremy Ney is the author of American Inequality, a newsletter that uses data visualization to cover inequality in the United States. He was previously a macro policy strategist at the Federal Reserve. 

• Colin Planalp is a senior research fellow at State Health Access Data Assistance Center, which is a state health policy research center in the University of Minnesota School of Public Health. 

• Paul Mellick is an associate professor and the chair of the Department of Health and Exercise Science at the University of St. Thomas.