A preliminary report by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention released Wednesday revealed an all-time high in terms of US life expectancy at 78 years old and 2 months.

The figures are based on a baby born in the year 2009, when around 2.4 million people died in the United States, down by 36,000 from 2008. The deaths were attributed to several causes such as heart disease and homicide so experts do not have a single explanation on the increase in life expectancy. Improved medical treatment, vaccination campaigns, and public health measures against smoking may have had an effect.

Life expectancy in the United States has been generally increasing since the 1940s, although there were years that it held steady and a few instances when it had a temporary dip. According to the CDC, there was a month dip in 2008 to 77 years and 11 months, although the new report corrected it saying there was a programming error.

The 2009 figures of the National Center for Health Statistics were derived from almost all the death certificates for that year. The final report will be released late this year. The new report revealed that the infant mortality rate registered a record low of 6.42 deaths for every 1,000 live births, a 3 percent decrease from 2008.

Unfortunately, there is also some bad news from the report. While life expectancy among the whites increased, it remained steady for the blacks. The same result was registered for black babies. The gap between the two races got a little wider with the whites living four years longer than the blacks with the margin increasing to two months.

Among the sexes, the new report also showed a huge gap with males living up to 75 ½ compared to 80 ½ for females. The 2009 report also registered the following results:

•Mortality among patients suffering from 10 of the 15 leading causes of death reflected a slight decrease.

• Suicide supplanted blood infections as the 10th leading cause of death among Americans. There was no significant change reflected for the former but blood infection decreased nearly 2 percent, bringing suicide back to the top ten for the first time since 1999.

• Deaths related to influenza and pneumonia decreased almost 5 percent, even though 2009 was the year of the swine flu. • Flu related deaths increased by 1,000 in 2009 compared to 2008 but pneumonia-related mortality decreased almost 4,000.

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