COVID-19 deaths helped fuel biggest drop in U.S. life expectancy in more than 75 years
Death rates for U.S. residents ages 15 and older rose sharply in 2020, driven by nearly 351,000 deaths attributed to COVID-19 during the year. As a result, the average life expectancy at birth in the US decreased by almost 2 years from that of 2019, according to a summary of data from the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Disease Prevention.
The NCHS report, an analysis of final data collected from the nation’s death certificates, noted that 3,383,729 deaths of U.S. residents were recorded , nearly 529,000 more deaths than in 2019.
The analysis showed that the average life expectancy of the US population in 2020 was 77.0 years, a decrease of 1.8 years from 2019 and the largest decrease of 1 year in more than 75 years.
The average life expectancy for men fell 2.1 years in 2020, before COVID-19 vaccines became widely available, from 76.3 years in 2019 to 74.2 years in 2020. For women, the average decrease was 1.5 years, from 81.4 years in 2019 to 79.9 years in 2020.
The drop in life expectancy was “largely due to increases in mortality due to COVID-19, unintentional injuries, heart disease, homicide and diabetes,” according to the report.
The age-adjusted death rate increased nearly 17%, from 715.2 deaths per 100,000 standard population in 2019 to 835.4 in 2020. However, increases in death rates for Hispanic and Black populations did not Hispanic women were much higher, with an increase of nearly 43% among Hispanic men and more than 32% among Hispanic women (compared to approximately 13% for non-Hispanic white men and 12% for non-Hispanic white women). and 28% among non-Hispanic black men and nearly 25% among non-Hispanic men. -Hispanic black women.
Death rates for all age groups 15 years and older also increased from 2019 to 2020. However, the report cited one exception: a drop in the country’s infant mortality rate, which decreased by almost 3%, from 558.3 infant deaths per 100,000 live births in 2019 to a record low of 541.9 infant deaths per 100,000 live births in 2020. Still, the new US "record low" infant mortality rate .remains substantially higher compared to mortality rates in 10 other high-income countries.
Although heart disease (causing 168.2 deaths per 100,000 population) and cancer (causing 144.1 deaths per 100,000 population) remained the top 2 causes of death in 2020, COVID-19 became the third leading cause of death. Suicide was removed from the list of top 10 causes in 2020, according to the report.
The remaining leading causes of death in 2020 after heart disease, cancer and COVID-19 were unintentional injuries (including fatal drug overdoses), stroke, chronic lower respiratory diseases, Alzheimer’s disease, diabetes , influenza and pneumonia, and kidney disease.
These top 10 causes accounted for about 74% of all U.S. deaths in 2020. Age-adjusted death rates increased between 2019 and 2020 for 6 of these conditions (4.1% from heart disease, 16.8 % for unintentional injury, 4.9% for stroke, 8.7% for Alzheimer’s disease, 14.8% for diabetes and 5.7% for influenza and pneumonia). The mortality rate for kidney disease remained the same, while rates decreased by 1.4% for cancer and 4.7% for chronic lower respiratory diseases.
Researchers have noted that increases in deaths attributed to causes other than COVID-19 suggest that the pandemic may negatively affect health indirectly, including people forgoing health care for a variety of reasons, such as loss of health. work and lack of insurance or fear of SARS-CoV-2 transmission in care settings.
Increases in other leading causes of death, such as heart disease, Alzheimer’s disease and diabetes, may be due to disruptions in health care that hampered preventive care and made early detection and treatment of diseases difficult.
