U.S. life expectancy dropped in 2017 for the third consecutive year, as deaths by suicide and drug overdose continue to claim more American lives.

The average American could expect to live to 78.6 years old in 2017, down from 78.7 in 2016, according to data released Thursday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS). That decline may be modest, but it marks the third year in a row that life expectancy at birth has fallen — a noteworthy phenomenon, since the previous multiyear drop recorded by the NCHS was in the early 1960s.

The modern trend seems to be propelled by steady increases in deaths by suicide and drugs, according to the new data. Upticks in deaths by suicide and accidental injuries (including drug overdoses), as well as due to conditions including Alzheimer’s disease, stroke, influenza and pneumonia, have outpaced reductions in fatal heart disease and cancer, the country’s two leading causes of death. All together, the U.S. death rate rose by 0.4% from 2016 to 2017, going from 728.8 deaths per 100,000 people to 731.9.

Drug overdoses alone took 70,237 lives in 2017, the highest number ever recorded for a single year. While that number corresponds to a 9.6% increase in the death rate, it’s much smaller than the 21% jump recorded between 2015 and 2016 — perhaps a sign that the nation’s substance abuse epidemic may be starting to stabilize. Preliminary data released last month also said drug overdose deaths have fallen over the last year.

Still, drugs — namely opioids such as heroin — continue to be a considerable cause of fatalities. And synthetic opioids, such as fentanyl, are a growing problem: The rate of overdose deaths involving these drugs rose by 45% from 2016 to 2017.

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