The decrease of 77 years in 2020 to 71.1 years in 2021 puts life expectancy in the United States at the lowest level since 1996, according to the report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The fall of almost a year in 2021, plus a nearly two-year drop in 2020, was the biggest consecutive drop since 1921 a 1923, the agency said.
The Covid pandemic-19, drug overdoses and suicides are driving the decline, according to the CDC.
“COVID was the main factor. Other factors have been unintentional injuries, and they were primarily driven by unintentional increases in drug overdoses and also other causes of death, likely related to the pandemic, but not directly to the virus,” said Robert Anderson, chief statistician. of mortality from the CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS), which issued the report.
Looking ahead, Anderson doubts that life expectancy will recover in 2022 and suspects that there could be a further decline.
“It will depend on what happens this fall and winter, whether or not we will see another decrease in life expectancy,” he said. “I really don’t expect 2022 to be worse than 2021, but you never know with these things. In 2023, it is possible, if everything is resolved, the life expectancy is restored. It’s hard to know what the long-term consequences of COVID will be.”
The largest decrease in life expectancy occurred among American Indians and Alaska Natives, with a reduction of 1.9 years until 65.2 years in 2021, the same as the US general life expectancy in 1995. Between 2019 and 2021, these groups lost 6.6 years of life expectancy, according to founding researchers.
Among whites, the decrease in 2021 was one year: from 77.4 to 2020 a 76.4. Among blacks, the drop was almost a year, from 71.5 years to 70.8 in 2021. In both groups, life expectancy in 2021 was the lowest since 1995.
After a four-year drop in life expectancy from 2019 to 2020, Hispanics in the United States had a smaller decline in 2021 (0.2 years) to 77.6 years. Among Asians, life expectancy also fell from much less than a year, to 83,5 years , which is the highest life expectancy of any group included in the report.
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