I think the bump you're referring to is 1996. A World Bank sourced Life Expectancy chart[1] seems to indicate problems in both South Africa in general and the

I think the bump you're referring to is 1996. A World Bank sourced Life Expectancy chart[1] seems to indicate problems in both South Africa in general and the economic depression in Russia coincide roughly with that time period. //edit: Events in Korea, Kazakhstan, Ukraine and Congo caused dips as well. I guess the next question (and an interesting one) would be if there was a human condition of some sort that unified these different situations. [1] http://www.google.com/publicdata/explore?ds=d5bncppjof8f9_&ctype=b&strail=false&nselm=s&met_x=sp_dyn_le00_in&scale_x=lin&ind_x=false&met_y=sp_dyn_tfrt_in&scale_y=lin&ind_y=false&met_s=sp_pop_totl&scale_s=lin&ind_s=false&dimp_c=country:region&ifdim=country&iconSize=0.5&uniSize=0.035#!ctype=b&strail=false&bcs=d&nselm=s&met_x=sp_dyn_le00_in&scale_x=lin&ind_x=false&met_y=sp_dyn_tfrt_in&scale_y=lin&ind_y=false&met_s=sp_pop_totl&scale_s=lin&ind_s=false&dimp_c=country:region&ifdim=country&pit=999662400000&hl=en_US&dl=en_US&ind=false http://www.google.com/publicdata/explore?ds=d5bncppjof8f9_&#...