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Bob: Globally, average lifespan increased dramatically up until about 1998. It has since been on a gradual decline.
Actually, the lifespan didn't really get an increase so much as we made a huge impact on Childhood diseases.
Take a look at the life expectancy of someone 50 years old in 1900. It was about 70ish. BUT the life expectancy of a newborn was only 40-50ish.
In 1900 if you made it to 40 or 50 you could expect to live to almost the same age we do now.
We didn't really extend how LONG someone could live, We just increased the number of people reaching adulthood(ie getting rid of whooping cough, and other childhood diseases).
True, although the life expectancy of someone 50 years old today (in a developed nation) would surely be well over 80, so there has been some improvement at the upper end.
Thanks to a lot of expensive geriactric drugs, pace-makers, etc., modern hospitilization and nursing home intervention. This postponement of death isn't getting any cheaper and won't prevail much longer in a declining petroleum regime.
Note on lifespans.
From a purely population point of view, medicine is almost irrelevant (of course, on a personal level you may need medical intervention to survive). The greatest boon to health in our society is clean water, sewerage, food, etc.
If you are considering a downslope in living conditions, then basic hygene and sustenance are your key factors to staying healthy. Childhood and adult diseases killed enormous numbers of people in western countries (1 in 1000 and more per year for some of them) through till the late 1800s/early 1900s, thanks in large part to sewerage systems that were completed in major cities.
"You can never solve a problem on the level on which it was created."
Albert Einstein
This (childhood mortality) is in line with research I've seen.
Also the introduction of antibiotics has made a dent.
In recent decades the adoption of foods which have no history of safe consumption (highly processed, GMO, less and less vitamins minerals, high-fructose corn syrup, chemical concoctions) and a reduction in exercise are leading to a reduction in lifespan due to so many people being overweight, obese and getting the slew of diseases that come with such a diet/lifestyle (cancer, autoimmune diseases, CHD, diabetes and more). In particular bypass operations and the ilk do not extend the life of people with CHD (chronic heart disease) and so we'll continue to see lifespan decrease as more people (tr)eat their way to heart attacks. Healthy At 100 is an interesting book about people with a history of long life.
Note that infant mortality took an upturn when doctors got involved in births (partially delt with thanks to Louis Pastour) however, infant mortality is lower when midwives, and not MDs attend the birth (read The Thinking Woman's Guide to a Better Birth).
The loss of antibiotics in recent history and the breeding of superbugs by feeding our best antibiotics to animals on unimaginable scales will come home to roost.
A loss of travel speed and distance and less people in general will help with this.
The best thing would be to put a stake into the heart of modern meat production and get people onto a mostly vegetarian/vegan diet.