Life expectancy is an area that has changed a great deal over the past century. Life expectancy is directly related to health. By definition, health is a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being. Many people just look at the biological side of health, but health is as much social as it is biological. There are four ways in which society affects health. The first is through cultural patterns. What societies see as healthful is also thought of as morally good. This varies across cultures. Culture's standards of health also change with the passing of time. Another way that society affects health is through technology. Finally, social inequality has a great influence over the patterns of health within a society. All societies face this inequality factor. A large amount of variance is seen between the life expectancies of high and low-income nations. Fortunately, the United States is a high-income country whose health standards benefit from the country's wealth. We will now take a look at the changes of life expectancy at birth in the United States from 1900 to 1998. .
Overall, the health of the United States benefits from the fact that the U.S. is a rich nation by global standards. Life expectancy rose 62.2% to 76.7 years from 1900 to 1998. The increases in the past few decades have been more modest than in the earlier decades of the century. However, these modest increases along with the larger earlier ones have added up to have a rather profound effect on the U.S. Death for young people is more rare in the U.S. now than it was in the past. The young people are surviving early life difficulties more often but now face new problems such as sexually transmitted diseases. A reason for the increase in life expectancy from the early/middle part of the century can be seen through cigarettes. Cigarettes are at the top of the list of preventable health hazards in the United States.