Low_LifeExpectancy_IBTGraphics
The U.S. is also seeing a historic decline in life expectancy since 2015 in the wake of opioid epidemic and the COVID-19 pandemic. IBT Graphics

Life expectancy is a major metric for assessing the health of a country's population. It captures the mortality along the entire life course, indicating the average age of death in a population.

With the advent of modernization and technological development, the global average life expectancy rate at birth has increased significantly. However, there are a number of less-developed countries that continue to grapple with low life expectancy rates due to various reasons, ranging from chronic diseases and lack of basic amenities to political instability.

The landlocked country of Chad has the lowest life expectancy rate at birth at 53.68 years, with males having a life expectancy of 52.01 and females 55.41 years.

The U.S. is seeing a historic decline in life expectancy since 2015 in the wake of opioid epidemic and the COVID-19 pandemic. Over the last two years, the U.S. saw the biggest drop in a century, with expectancy sinking to 76.4 years for Americans born in 2021, according to provisional data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.