NEW YORK — Life expectancy in the United States increased last year — by more than a year — but is still not close to what it was before the COVID-19 pandemic.
The 2022 increase was mainly due to the waning of the pandemic, according to researchers at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. said Wednesday. But even with this sharp increase, life expectancy in the United States has only returned to 77 years and 6 months, about what it was two decades ago.
Life expectancy is an estimate of the average number of years a baby born in a given year can expect to live, assuming that mortality rates at that time remain constant. The snapshot statistic is considered one of the most important measures of the health of the American population. The 2022 calculations released Wednesday are preliminary and could change a little as the calculations are finalized.
For decades, life expectancy in the United States has increased a little almost every year. But about a decade ago, the trend flattened and even declined in some years – a stall largely blamed on overdose deaths and suicides.
Then came the coronavirus, which killed more than 1.1 million people in the United States since the beginning of 2020. The measure of American longevity has plunged, going from 78 years and 10 months in 2019 to 77 years in 2020, then to 76 years and 5 months in 2021.
“We’ve basically lost 20 years of gains,” said the CDC’s Elizabeth Arias.
A decline in COVID-19 deaths led to improvement in 2022.
COVID-19 and other leading causes of death
In 2021, COVID was the third leading cause of death in the country (after heart disease and cancer). Last year it fell into the hands of fourth most important cause. With more than a month left in the current year, preliminary data suggests that COVID-19 could become the ninth or tenth leading cause of death in 2023.
But the United States is grappling with other problems, including drug overdose deaths and suicides.
The number of suicides in the United States has reached a record level last year, and the national suicide rate was the highest since 1941, according to a second report from the CDC published Wednesday.
Drug overdose deaths in the United States increased slightly last year, after two big advances at the start of the pandemic. And in the first six months of this year, the estimated number of overdose deaths continued to progress.
Comparing life expectancy in the United States to other countries
Life expectancy in the United States also continues to be lower than that of dozens of other countries. It also has not rebounded as quickly as in other countries, including France, Italy, Spain and Sweden.
Steven Woolf, a mortality researcher at Virginia Commonwealth University, said he expects the United States will one day return to pre-pandemic life expectancy.
But “what I’m trying to say is: It’s not a great place to be,” he added.
Related story: Expert: Number of adults and children who have received the new COVID vaccines…
Highlights of the new report
Some other highlights from the new report:
- Life expectancy has increased for both men and women, as well as for all racial and ethnic groups.
- The decline in deaths from COVID-19 is responsible for 84% of the increase in life expectancy. The second biggest factor was the decline in deaths from heart disease, credited for about 4% of the increase. But experts note that deaths from heart disease have increased during COVID-19, and both factors have factored into many deaths during the pandemic.
- Changes in life expectancy varied by race and ethnicity. Hispanic Americans, American Indians and Alaska Natives saw their life expectancy increase by more than two years in 2022. Black life expectancy increased by more than a year and a half. The life expectancy of Asian Americans increased by a year and that of whites by about 10 months.
But the changes are relative, as Hispanic Americans and Native Americans were hit harder in the early days of COVID-19. Life expectancy for Hispanics fell by more than four years between 2019 and 2021, and that of Native Americans by more than six years.
“A lot of the big increases in life expectancy are coming from the groups that have suffered the most from COVID,” said Mark Hayward, a sociology professor at the University of Texas who studies how different factors affect deaths. adults. “They had more reason to bounce back.”
