The average life expectancy of Americans dropped precipitously in 2020 and 2021, the steepest decline in two years in nearly a century, and a stark reminder of the toll the country has taken from the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.
By 2021, the average American could expect to live to age 76, federal health researchers reported Wednesday. The number represents a loss of nearly three years from 2019, when Americans could expect to live nearly 79 years on average.
The reduction was particularly marked among Native Americans and Alaska Natives, the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) reported. The average life expectancy in these groups was reduced by four years in 2020 alone.
The cumulative decline since the beginning of the pandemic, more than 6.5 years on average, has lowered life expectancy to 65 years among Native Americans and Alaska Natives — the expectation of all Americans in 1944.
In 2021, the decline in life expectancy was more pronounced among white Americans than among black Americans, who experienced greater declines in the first year of the pandemic.
While the pandemic has driven most of the decline in life expectancy, a rise in accidental and drug overdose deaths also contributed, as did deaths from heart disease, chronic liver disease and cirrhosis, according to the new report.
Until now, experts were used to measuring changes in life expectancy in increments of months, not years.
“Even small declines in life expectancy of a tenth or two-tenths of a year mean that, at a population level, far more people are dying prematurely than they really should,” said Robert Anderson, head of mortality statistics at the NCHS.
“This indicates a huge impact on the population in terms of increased mortality,” he added.
Dr. Steven Woolf, director emeritus of the Center for Society and Health at Virginia Commonwealth University, characterized the decline in life expectancy in the United States as “historic.”
While other high-income countries were also hit hard in 2020, the first year of the pandemic, most started to recover last year, he said.
“None of them have experienced a continual drop in life expectancy like the United States, and a good number of them have seen life expectancy begin to return to normal,” Woolf said.
These countries have had more successful vaccination campaigns and populations more willing to adopt behavioral measures to prevent infections, such as wearing masks, he said, adding, “The US is clearly an exception.”
But the coronavirus was not the only culprit. Past health problems — rooted in poverty, discrimination and lack of access to health care — have left Native Americans and Alaska Natives particularly vulnerable to the virus, said Dr. Ann Bullock, former director of diabetes treatment and prevention at the agency. federal Indian Health Service and a member of the Chippewa tribe of Minnesota.
One in seven Native Americans and Alaska Natives has diabetes, the highest rate among racial or ethnic groups in the United States, and many struggle with obesity or being overweight. Both conditions make people more susceptible to severe Covid-19, and crowded multigenerational housing increases the risk.
“There’s no doubt that Covid has contributed to the increase in mortality over the last couple of years, but it didn’t start these problems – it made everything much worse,” Bullock said.
The average life expectancy of these populations is now “smaller than that of every country in the Americas except Haiti, which is surprising,” said Noreen Goldman, professor of demography and public affairs at the Princeton School of Public and International Affairs.
The continued drop was all the more disturbing because it came after a successful vaccination campaign, she said, adding: “The Native American population did very well in vaccination efforts, and that made us feel that 2021 would not be as devastating as 2020. “.
“That was wrong, and it’s very hard to swallow,” he added.
White Americans saw the second-largest decline in average life expectancy in 2021, a 1-year drop from 77.4 in 2020 to 76.4 in 2021. The decline was steeper than among black Americans, by seven-tenths. of year. This was followed by Hispanic Americans, whose life expectancy dropped by just two-tenths of a year in 2021.
But both blacks and Hispanics have been hit hard in 2020, the first year of the pandemic. The average life expectancy of Hispanic Americans dropped by 4 years, from 81.9 in 2019 to 77.9. The number for black Americans has declined nearly as much over 3 years to 71.5 in 2020.
White Americans experienced the smallest decline during the first year of the pandemic, a 1.4-year drop from 78.8 to 77.4. For white and black Americans, life expectancy is now the lowest since 1995, federal researchers said.
Asian Americans had the longest life expectancy among the racial and ethnic groups included in the new analysis: 83.5 years on average. The number dropped only slightly last year, from 83.6 in 2020.
It was the biggest reduction in life expectancy in the United States over a two-year period since the early 1920s, when life expectancy dropped to 57.2 in 1923. This drop may be related to high unemployment rates. and suicide during a previous recession, as well as a sharp rise in mortality among men and women of color.
While the US healthcare system is among the best in the world, Americans suffer from what experts call “the US health disadvantage,” an amalgamation of influences that erode well-being, Woolf said.
These include a fragmented, for-profit health system; poor diet and lack of physical activity; and widespread risk factors such as tobacco use, widespread access to weapons, poverty and pollution. Problems for marginalized groups are compounded by racism and segregation, he added.
The result is a high burden of disease among Americans and a shorter life expectancy compared to high-income countries over the past two decades, Woolf said.
