Life expectancy fell in the United States in 2021 to its lowest since 1996, the second year of a historic retreat due to Covid-19 deaths, provisional government data showed on Wednesday. The data further revealed, that drug overdoses and heart disease also played a significant factor in the overall drop in life expectancy.
The nearly one-year decline from 2020 to 76.1 years marked the largest two-year drop in life expectancy at birth in close to a century, the U.S. CDC found.
Deaths from COVID-19 contributed to half of the overall decline
The disparity in life expectancy between men and women also widened last year to the highest in more than two decades, with men now expected to live 73.2 years, nearly six fewer years than women.
Deaths from COVID-19 contributed to half of the overall decline in life expectancy last year, with drug overdoses and heart disease also major contributors, the data showed. The CDC reported COVID-19 was responsible for over 46,000 deaths in the US in 2021. The worst annual loss in life expectancy the United States recorded after World War II was in 2020 due to COVID-19.
Life expectancy this year is unlikely to return to pre-pandemic levels
“Mortality’s been a little better in 2022 than it was in 2020, so I think it’s likely that we would see maybe a slight increase in life expectancy,” said Robert Anderson, chief of mortality statistics at CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics.
However, life expectancy this year is unlikely to return to pre-pandemic levels and a lot rides on what happens toward the end of the year because deaths typically rise during winter months, Anderson said.