Life expectancy estimates can change with the addition of more data and further analysis. The new report is based on provisional data. In the same span, life expectancy for Asian Americans dropped by about two years and stands at 83 1/2.Įxperts say there are many possible reasons for such differences, including lack of access to quality health care, lower vaccination rates, and a greater share of the population in lower-paying jobs that required them to keep working when the pandemic was at its worst. For example, life expectancy for American Indian and Alaskan Native people saw a decline of more than 6 1/2 years since the pandemic began and is at 65 years. The last time it was that low was in 1996.ĭeclines during the pandemic were worse for some racial groups, and some gaps widened. Last year, it fell to about 76 years, 1 month. life expectancy rose for decades, but progress stalled before the pandemic. It is "the most fundamental indicator of population health in this country," said Robert Hummer, a University of North Carolina researcher focused on population health patterns. Life expectancy is an estimate of the average number of years a baby born in a given year might expect to live, given death rates at that time. It was bad before and it’s gotten worse,” said Samuel Preston, a University of Pennsylvania demographer. Other contributors to the decline are longstanding problems: drug overdoses, heart disease, suicide and chronic liver disease. The last comparable decrease happened in the early 1940s, during the height of World War II.Ĭenters for Disease Control and Prevention officials blamed COVID-19 for about half the decline in 2021, a year when vaccinations became widely available but new coronavirus variants caused waves of hospitalizations and deaths. In the first two years of the COVID-19 pandemic, the estimated American lifespan has shortened by nearly three years. life expectancy dropped for the second consecutive year in 2021, falling by nearly a year from 2020, according to a government report being released Wednesday.
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