Life expectancy in the United States fell in 2016 as the number of deaths due to drug overdoses rose more than 21 per cent.
The US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention said drug overdoses killed 63,600 people, of which 42,249 people died from opioid-related overdoses.
That marks a 28 per cent increase in opioid-related deaths 2015, while the number of deaths from synthetic opioids other than methadone more than doubled to 19,413.
Life expectancy fell for the second year in a row, to 78.6 years, a decrease of 0.1 year from 2015.
West Virginia, Ohio, New Hampshire, the District of Columbia and Pennsylvania had the highest age-adjusted drug overdose death rates in 2016, the CDC said.
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