US babies born in 2022 gained roughly a year in life expectancy compared to babies born a year earlier, according to federal data released on Wednesday, reversing two years of declines caused largely by the COVID-19 pandemic.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), life expectancy at birth for 2022 newborns was 77.5 years, up from 76.4 years in 2021 but still lower than the 78.8 years expected for those born in 2019.
It will be “some time before we’re back to where we were in 2019, before the pandemic,” according to Elizabeth Arias, a CDC researcher who worked on the report.
The study calculated babies’ life expectancy if their birth mortality conditions persisted throughout their lives.
“There were positive outcomes all around … all the groups by race and sex experienced increases in life expectancy,” Arias said.
Previous decreases in mortality due to COVID explained more than 80% of the increases in life expectancy in all groups
Life expectancy increased by 2.3 years for American Indian and Alaska Native non-Hispanic newborns, from 65.6 to 67.9, followed by 2.2 years for Hispanic newborns, from 77.8 to 80.
Black non-Hispanic Americans, who were disproportionately affected by the pandemic, saw their life expectancy rise by 1.6 years, from 71.2 to 72.8, owing primarily to reductions in COVID-19 mortality, followed by reductions in deaths from heart disease, homicide, diabetes, and cancer.
Asian non-Hispanic infants’ life expectancy increased by one year to 84.5 years, while white non-Hispanic infants’ life expectancy increased by 0.8 years to 77.5 years.
Previous decreases in mortality due to COVID explained more than 80% of the increases in life expectancy in all groups, according to the report
Declines in deaths from heart disease, unintentional injuries, cancer, and homicide also contributed to a higher overall life expectancy, though their impact varied.
Females continue to have a longer life expectancy
Increases in life expectancy would have been greater in the American Indian and Alaska Native populations, as well as the Hispanic population, if not for offsetting increases in mortality due to unintentional injuries.
Increases in mortality due to perinatal conditions, congenital malformations, kidney disease, nutritional deficiencies, and legal intervention, a reference to deaths caused by injuries inflicted by police or other law enforcement agents, offset increases in life expectancy for non-Hispanic Black babies.
Females continue to have a longer life expectancy. The gender difference reached 6 years in 2020, a level not seen since 1996. That gap had shrunk to 5.4 years in 2022, down from 5.8 years in 2021.
The data for 2022 is provisional, which means it may change, and it has several limitations, including a difference in the timeliness with which some jurisdictions submit death certificates.