Author Archives: Merdies Hayes

For much of one-half century, the policies and ideology of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. have been espoused and renounced, adopted and co-opted by practically every socio-political movement the world over. Americans, rightly, consider him as their benevolent representative of peaceful social change—a latter-day Gandhi in terms of reshaping the public landscape—whose brief and fateful sojourn would force this nation to look inward toward a more perfect union.

With advances in practically everything from medicine, personal well-being and leaps and bounds in transportation safety, it would be believed that Americans are living longer. That assumption was refuted not long ago by a report issued by the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) that indicated that American life expectancy is in decline for the first time in more than two decades.

With advances in practically everything from medicine, personal well-being and leaps and bounds in transportation safety, it would be believed that Americans are living longer. That assumption was refuted not long ago by a report issued by the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) that indicated that American life expectancy is in decline for the first time in more than two decades.
Researchers can’t point to a single qualifier as to why we’re not living longer. Instead, it may be due to a number of factors—from heart disease to suicides—that have contributed to the drop. The scientists see the drop as particularly alarming, when during much of the past century, life expectancy has generally risen for all sectors of American society, even when HIV-related deaths were at their peak in the early 1990s.