Human Life Expectancy In The United States

Human life expectancy in the United States has nearly doubled in the last one hundred years. Prior to the early twentieth century, human life expectancy hovered between thirty-eight and forty years of age. Today human life expectancy in the United States is seventy-nine years of age. This jump in life expectancy can be accredited to modern day medicine, refrigeration, clean water and improved hygiene. Disease was the most common killer during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries (Helmuth). One of the biggest contributors to raising the national life expectancy was infant mortality rates and child mortality rates going down. Although the average life expectancy of the eighteenth and nineteenth century was only approximately thirty-nine years, when infant and child mortality are not taken into account, the actual average longevity age is much higher. In the eighteen-fifties, 21.7%
(217 out of every 1000 babies born) of white children born died before the age of one. That number jumps to 34% (340 out of every 1000 babies born) when compared to the number of black babies that did not survive infancy (Sullivan). When expanding from infants to children under five the number increases slightly. In the late eighteenth century the child mortality rate was over 40% but by the mid-to-late nineteenth century the number had dropped to about 35% (Roser). Today in the United States infant and child mortality rates are down to 0.7% (6.9 out of every 1000 babies born) of live births. In developing countries however, such as Angola, Somalia and Niger, child and infant mortality rates are still upwards of 15% (Roser).
The largest factors in infant and child death are malformations, sudden infant death syndrome, maternal complications, accidents and injuries, limited access to basic medical resources, infections, complications during delivery, lack of clean water, and disease (Andrews). These factors become even more prominent when the child is born into a poor family. Life expectancy for children and adults alike is increased in wealthier families due to the facts that wealthier individuals tend to have better access to health care, tend to stay away from violent situations, and tend to live overall healthier lifestyles (Congressional Budget Office).
According to table 2, out of the forty graves collected from the Salem Street Burial Ground, seven of them were children under the age of five, which is almost 18% of the graves collected. Surprisingly, almost all of those deaths occurred during the summer and autumn months.
Among the samples collected, many times the family names were repeated (which signifies that those people are part of the same family) while other times family names were not repeated. While many of them were in the same family, only in once incidence was it seen where there was more than one infant buried per family. This showed that there was little correlation to if a person has one child die they are more likely to have another child die. Although the average life expectancy throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries remained relavitely static at around forty years, the average age of death of the forty graves collected – including those who died before age five - is seventeen years higher, at age fifty-seven. When infant and child mortality are taken out of account that age jumps again to almost seventy-two years, according to table 3. This could be due to non-accurate representation of the general population within this burial ground or non-accurate representation simply within the forty collected graves. The land including and surrounding the Salem Street Burying Ground was originally settled as a plantation owned by the first governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1630. It was used as a farm and plantation for forty-five years. The land was eventually broken up into smaller plots, which were sold to many families including the Tufts family and the Wade family. The owners of this new land eventually came to be the founders of the town of Medford.
The land exclusive to the cemetery was originally owned by the Wade family.
When Jonathan Wade died in the late seventeenth century, he was buried on his land in an area called “the burying place”. Eventually, the Salem Street Burying Ground became the town burying ground used exclusively for the burial of the town’s wealthy. Because socioeconomic factors are included in mortality, it makes sense that the life expectancy within Salem Street Burying Ground is higher than the national or global average at the time. The cemetery has stones dating as far back as 1683 and as recent as 1881. The population of Medford was only two hundred and thirty people in the beginning of the eighteenth century and by the beginning of the nineteenth century there were just over one thousand people living in Medford. There are six hundred of some of Medford’s wealthiest people buried there, as well as fifty slaves – all in unmarked graves. There are many families buried in this cemetery including those of the Tufts family. Additionally, many unknown Revolutionary war soldiers are buried in this
graveyard. While there were many infants and children buried in this cemetery, there were very few people aged the national average. There were only nine graves of people between the ages of 30 and 50, and many of those were in their mid-to-late forties—already higher than the national average at the time (Table 2). These deaths were most likely caused by disease.
There were several deaths of individuals who made it through childhood, yet were still younger than the national average at the time of their deaths (Table 2). There were three females who died in their twenties, possibly due to complications during childbirth. Maternal mortality tended to match the trends of infant mortality (WHO).
There were only two men who were past childhood yet younger than the national average and they were both members of the same family. Coincidentally, they were both twenty-six years old when they died. The largest cause of death among young adult men was death by combat, which is evidenced by the fact that there are several unknown revolutionaries buried in the cemetery. The particular gravestones used in this analysis were selected for several reasons. The first qualification to get the best results for the hypothesis were to get graves all in one group, mainly to get as many members from specific families. In this particular graveyard, there are gravestones that represent more than one person. This helped in identifying husbands and wives, as well as children. The quality of the headstone was important in deciding which grave to pick, because if the headstone was not legible then it couldn’t be recorded. Graves were chosen somewhat at random in order to get an average sampling of the population buried within the cemetery.
Because of the fact that slave graves were unmarked, and that those buried within Salem Street Burying Ground are predominantly wealthy people buried with their families from the seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries, it is assumed that primarily all of the graves are of Caucasians. This makes it impossible to compare infant death rates between blacks and whites within this particular graveyard. While there are many factors that determined the average life expectancy in the seventeenth, eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, infant and child mortality rates were a substantial factor in lowering the average. Taking infant and child mortality rates out of the equation when calculating life expectancy significantly raises the average, as seen by the staggering rates of child mortality, as well as the data presented from the graves collected at the Salem Street Burial Ground. Fortunately, with increases in health care, sanitation, and hygiene, as well as advancements in modern medicine, those rates have dropped significantly.