life expectancy

Once again, 24/7 Wall St. has examined the OECD's report on life satisfaction. And once again, the United States fails to make the top 10 happiest nations in the world. Which countries do? Some may surprise you.

In matters of life and death, it turns out that semantics matters. When researchers asked people what age they would "live to," compared with what age they would "die by," people's expectations shot up by an average of nine years. That life expectancy could have a big impact on your retirement finances.

A new study from Columbia University finds that the reasons America is lagging other countries aren't the commonly cited obesity, smoking, traffic fatalities and homicide. Rather, the problem has been poor health care, or rather, a poor health care system.

A new nationwide poll finds that two-thirds of U.S. voters support a $1 increase in tobacco taxes per pack. The tax could raise more than $9.1 billion in new annual revenue for states, says the report released by a coalition of public health organizations claims.

Anyone who's ever quit smoking (or tried to) knows that once the puffing stops, the eating begins. And as individual smokers go, so goes the nation: The U.S. has seen smoking rates fall and obesity rates rise in recent decades, and the combination has cut Americans' life expectancy. A recent New...

Folks living in Mississippi might want to consider changing zip codes. According to a report from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, National Center for Health Statistics, Magnolians have, on average, a 20% shorter life span than the national average. Mississippi isn't the only...

An expected side of economic hard times could be a longer life, according to a new study by the University of Michigan's Institute for Social Research. Its research about the Great Depression has found that between the years of 1929 and 1932, the life expectancy for Americans rose by an astonishing...

Medical costs can destroy the best-laid future plans. That's why I find the yearly health of the nation report by the CDC so useful. It clarifies trends and expectations, helping me plan my insurance needs. For example, here are some snippets from the comprehensive report: We spent $2...