Life expectancy in the U.S. dropped for the second year in a row last year. Covid deaths aren't the only reason.
U.S. life expectancy dropped for the second consecutive year in 2021, falling by nearly a year from 2020, according to a government report being released Wednesday.
U.S. life expectancy dropped for the second consecutive year in 2021, falling by nearly a year from 2020, according to a government report being released Wednesday.
In the first two years of the Covid pandemic, the estimated American lifespan has shortened by nearly three years. The last comparable decrease happened in the early 1940s, during the height of World War II.
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention officials blamed Covid for about half the decline in 2021, a year when vaccinations became widely available but new coronavirus variants caused waves of hospitalizations and deaths. Other contributors to the decline are long-standing problems: drug overdoses, heart disease, suicide and chronic liver disease.
A funeral home employee tends to inventory of pre-sold caskets in New York on April 29, 2020.Spencer Platt / Getty Images file“It’s a dismal situation. It was bad before and it’s become worse,” said Samuel Preston, a University of Pennsylvania demographer.
Life expectancy is an estimate of the average number of years a baby born in a given year might be expected to live, given death rates at that time. It is “the most fundamental indicator of population health in this country,” said Robert Hummer, a University of North Carolina researcher focused on population health patterns.
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