Life expectancy in Canada and the US compared

 National Center for Health Statistics reported that life expectancy at birth in the United States declined nearly a year from 2020 to 2021, according to new provisional data from the CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS). That decline – 77.0 to 76.1 years – took U.S. life expectancy at birth to its lowest level since 1996. The 0.9-year drop in life expectancy in 2021, along with a 1.8-year drop in 2020, was the biggest two-year decline in life expectancy since 1921-1923.

In Canada life expectancy has been on the rise for the past five years. In 2018 our life expectancy was 82. 07 years while in 2022 our life expectancy is 82.81 years, a 0.18% increase from 2021, Over the past five years, the life expectancy of Canadians has increased by 0.18% a year. Not a big increase but better than a drop in life expectancy as our neighbours to the south are experiencing.

Their data featured in a new report, “Provisional Life Expectancy Estimates for 2021.” shows that non-Hispanic American Indian-Alaskan Native people (AIAN) had the biggest drop in life expectancy in 2021 – 1.9 years. AIAN people had a life expectancy at birth of 65.2 years in 2021 – equal to the life expectancy of the total U.S. population in 1944. AIAN life expectancy has declined by 6.6 years from 2019 to 2021.

Non-Hispanic white people in the United States had the second biggest decline in life expectancy in 2021 – one full year from 77.4 in 2020 to 76.4 in 2021. Non-Hispanic Black people had the third biggest decline, a 0.7-year drop from 71.5 years in 2020 to 70.8 in 2021. Life expectancy at birth in 2021 was the lowest for both groups since 1995

Life expectancy at birth for women in the United States dropped 0.8 years from 79.9 years in 2020 to 79.1 in 2021, while life expectancy for men dropped one full year, from 74.2 years in 2020 to 73.2 in 2021. The report shows the disparity in life expectancy between men and women grew in 2021 from 5.7 years in 2020 to 5.9 years in 2021. From 2000 to 2010, this disparity had narrowed to 4.8 years, but gradually increased from 2010 to 2019 and is now the largest gap since 1996.

The numbers show that our approach to the pandemic was more effective than our neighbours. While life expectancy went up in Canada, the declines in life expectancy in the United States since 2019 are largely driven by the pandemic. COVID-19 deaths contributed to nearly three-fourths or 74% of the decline from 2019 to 2020 and 50% of the decline from 2020 to 2021. An estimated 16% of the decline in life expectancy from 2020 to 2021 can be attributed to increases in deaths from accidents/unintentional injuries. Drug overdose deaths account for nearly half of all unintentional injury deaths. The most recent data reported by NCHS showed more than 109,000 overdose deaths in the one-year period ending in March of 2022.

Other causes of death contributing to the decline in life expectancy from 2020 to 2021 include heart disease (4.1% of the decline), chronic liver disease and cirrhosis (3.0%), and suicide (2.1%). For men, the one-year decline in life expectancy was attributed primarily to mortality from COVID-19 (49.5% of the decline), unintentional injuries (19.1%), suicide (3.6%), chronic liver disease and cirrhosis (3.4%), and homicide (2.5%). For women, the 0.8-year decline in life expectancy was attributed mainly to mortality from COVID-19 (51.2% of the decline), unintentional injuries (14.8%), heart disease (5.7%), stroke (3.5%), and chronic liver disease and cirrhosis (2.4%)

While Canada is doing well it is only 15^th in the world for life expectancy with Japan at number 1 with a life expectancy of 85.16 years. The United States is 40^th in the world. Both countries have a long way to go to increase life expectancy. If you want  to check your counties ranking go here: https://www.worldlifeexpectancy.com/japan-life-expectancy 

Reading a compass

A compass is an incredibly useful, pocket-sized tool. It requires no batteries and can be used either with a map or on its own. However, these days it is typically only found in the kit bags of outdoors enthusiasts.

Knowing how to use a compass is ideal for those times when you’re taking a trip and your phone runs out of battery, or when you’re travelling in an area you don’t know well.

One important thing to know is that compasses are magnetic, which means their arrow always points to magnetic north — this is different from true north. Once you know how to follow its guidance, a compass can provide consistent information regarding the land you’re on and the direction you’re going.

Your phone does have a compass as one of its features, but you’ll still need to know how to read it. Like reading a map, this list item falls into the “good to have in your back pocket for emergencies” category.

Do we need dictionaries?

 I don't remember when I last used a physical dictionary, so I think a book dictionary may be obsolete, but not the dictionary itself. So dump the physical incarnation but keep the online version.

Paper dictionaries are, by definition, huge, and expensive to print and the only way to update them is to issue another edition.

Meanwhile, online dictionaries don’t take up any physical space and can grow fluidly to accommodate the changing lexicon of the times.

While you may have inherited a physical dictionary from a relative, chances are (first of all, that that copy is out of date), and that you usually bypass the tome and just Google whatever word you need to know.

There are still benefits to having a physical copy, as noted by children’s book publisher Scholastic.

First, flipping through a book to look up a word teaches you alphabetical order, which is both useful for children and for people learning a new language. You also learn more words than just the one you wanted to look up that way.

It also encourages focus and slows the student down, which can help them digest information.

Regardless of the advantages of a print dictionary, chances are you’re seeing less and less of them.

Maintaining a resume a skill needed today or not?

I have read about the idea that job hunters no longer need a resume. I disagree.

In the past, employers have given top priority to an applicant’s experience, so having a chronological compilation of your work history was a good idea. These days, the focus has shifted to an employee’s performance, which is harder to communicate in the traditional format of a chronological resume. There are many different ways to present your qualifications. As the evolving job market is constantly changing skills requirements may make the written chronological resume simply too static. Function resumes also known as the skill-based resume, is a resume format that focuses on your professional skill test as opposed to work experience. When I was helping people find jobs I recommended that they used this format which is a more detailed method of presenting what you can do, not when you did it.

An article by business media brand Fast Company states that 87% of employers look first at a potential hire’s LinkedIn profile, and other than that, there are multimedia platforms like Linktree that can keep a more fluid record of your skills and accomplishments accessible online.

It’s still a good idea to have a resume on hand, but writing your job objective at the top of the page and then trying to remember the last five places you worked should become a thing of the past. Use a resume, but be sure to use a functional format to highlight your skills.