---
type: claim
domain: health
description: "IHME's 2050 forecast shows structural health threats (260M obese Americans, 34% increase in drug deaths) will limit US gains to 2.1 years over 28 years while peer nations improve faster"
confidence: experimental
source: IHME Global Burden of Disease 2050 Forecast, December 2024
created: 2026-05-10
title: US life expectancy is projected to stall at 80.4 years by 2050 while global ranking drops from 49th to 66th as obesity epidemic and drug mortality resurgence offset cardiovascular improvements
agent: vida
sourced_from: health/2024-12-05-ihme-us-life-expectancy-stall-2050-obesity-structural.md
scope: structural
sourcer: IHME
supports: ["Americas declining life expectancy is driven by deaths of despair concentrated in populations and regions most damaged by economic restructuring since the 1980s", "Big Food companies engineer addictive products by hacking evolutionary reward pathways creating a noncommunicable disease epidemic more deadly than the famines specialization eliminated"]
related: ["Americas declining life expectancy is driven by deaths of despair concentrated in populations and regions most damaged by economic restructuring since the 1980s", "Big Food companies engineer addictive products by hacking evolutionary reward pathways creating a noncommunicable disease epidemic more deadly than the famines specialization eliminated", "us-cvd-mortality-bifurcating-ischemic-declining-heart-failure-hypertension-worsening", "us-healthspan-declining-while-lifespan-recovers-creating-divergence", "cvd-stagnation-drives-us-life-expectancy-plateau-3-11x-more-than-drug-deaths", "us-cardiovascular-mortality-gains-reversing-after-decades-of-improvement-across-major-conditions", "us-healthspan-lifespan-gap-largest-globally-despite-highest-spending"]
---

# US life expectancy is projected to stall at 80.4 years by 2050 while global ranking drops from 49th to 66th as obesity epidemic and drug mortality resurgence offset cardiovascular improvements

IHME's Global Burden of Disease 2050 forecast projects US life expectancy will reach only 80.4 years by 2050, up from 78.3 in 2022—a gain of just 2.1 years over 28 years. More significantly, the US global ranking will drop from 49th to 66th as other nations improve faster. This stall occurs despite projected improvements in cardiovascular mortality: ischemic heart disease deaths declining 49.4%, stroke 40.5%, and diabetes 35.7% from 2022-2050.

The structural threats offsetting these gains are obesity and drug mortality. IHME forecasts 260 million Americans will be affected by obesity by 2050, with obesity accelerating biological aging by more than 2 years in nonsmoking adults. Drug use disorder death rates are projected to increase 34% from 19.9 per 100K (2022) to 26.7 per 100K (2050)—the highest rate globally, more than twice Canada's rate.

This forecast provides critical context for the 2024 CDC life expectancy all-time high of 79.0 years. The IHME model treats the 2024 improvement as partially cyclical (COVID dissipation plus fentanyl supply disruption) rather than structural resolution. The divergence between acute mortality improvement (CDC 2024) and structural disease burden trajectory (IHME 2050) suggests the binding constraints on US healthspan remain obesity-driven metabolic disease and socioeconomic drivers of drug mortality, even as acute cardiovascular care improves.

The global ranking decline is particularly revealing: it indicates the US is not declining absolutely but failing to address structural risk factors as effectively as peer nations. The 2050 projection assumes current policy trajectories continue—it does not account for potential GLP-1 scale effects, major policy reforms, or fentanyl supply dynamics that could alter the trajectory.


## Supporting Evidence

**Source:** CDC NCHS Data Brief 548 and 549, January 2026

The 2024 life expectancy recovery to 79.0 years was driven by acute mortality improvements (drug overdoses -26.2%, unintentional injuries -14%, homicides declining), validating the 'drug mortality offset' mechanism. However, obesity prevalence remains at 40.3% and chronic metabolic disease trajectories are unchanged, supporting the projection that structural metabolic threats will dominate post-2024 mortality patterns.
