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U.S. Life Expectancy Drops Dramatically Due to Covid-19
The decline is largest for people of color
Life expectancy in the United States is now 1.13 years shorter due to Covid-19 deaths last year, a drop 10 times larger than any other dip in recent years. For Black people, who’ve been hit disproportionately hard by the disease, 2.1 years have been shaved off expected life-spans. Latinos have lost 3.05 years.
The estimated figures, based on the 336,000 Covid deaths in 2020, represent the biggest decline in life expectancy in at least four decades and are the lowest expectations set since 2003. Expect further declines in coming years, researchers say.
After decades of increasing life expectancy in America, the new findings, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, mark a steep drop on the heels of multiple declines since 2015, attributed to systemic inequities in health care and “deaths of despair” such as opioid overdoses, excess alcohol consumption, and suicide. The United States already ranked behind Cuba, Slovenia, and 47 other nations on this measure of longevity.
Life expectancy forecasts the expected life-span at birth if known death rates at the time were to remain consistent throughout that person’s life, based on age-specific mortality rates. It lends more weight to the…
