Life Expectancy in the US Drops to Its Lowest in Decades After Falling Nearly a Full Year in 2021

Life expectancy in the United States took another significant hit in 2021 after a historic drop in 2020, according to BBC News.

According to provisional data published by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on Wednesday, August 31, life expectancy at birth fell nearly a year between 2020 and 2021. It also dropped more than two and a half years overall since the start of the COVID pandemic.

Life expectancy at birth dropped to 76.1 years, the lowest it has been in the United States since 1996 and the most significant 2-year decline in a century.

COVID was the driving factor behind the decline

According to a report from the CDC's National Center for Health Statistics, COVID was the driving factor, with deaths from the coronavirus contributing to half of the decline from 2020 to 2021.

Bob Anderson, the chief mortality statistician for the CDC, told CNN that the death rate from COVID-19 was higher in 2021 than in 2020. He added that it was not surprising that life expectancy would fall again in the U.S.

Drug overdose deaths also reached a record high last year, killing about 109,000 people. Deaths from unintentional injuries, about half of which are caused by drug overdose, were the second-leading cause of the decline in life expectancy.

Dr. Nora Volkow, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, said it was not surprising but frustrating. She said that it is distressing to see the continuing negative impact of drug overdose on the life expectancy of Americans.

She added that these deaths often occur in young adults and therefore represent a tragically high number of years of life lost and a devastating impact on individuals, families, and communities. She explained that they have the science and the tools available to help reverse this trend and reduce the number of overdose deaths in this country, but these tools are not being used effectively.

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The scale of decline in life expectancy is extraordinary

The scale of the decline in life expectancy is still extraordinary, even if expected. According to the report, mortality rates due to pneumonia and influenza decreased in 2021. If not for these offsetting effects, the decline in life expectancy in the U.S would have been even greater.

Anderson said the recent decline among American Indian and Alaska Native people is astounding. The life expectancy for this group dropped by nearly two years between 2020 and 2021 and a staggering 6.6 years since 2019, more than twice as much as it did for the entire U.S. population, according to Yahoo.

The life expectancy for American Indians in 2021 (65.2 years) was equal to the overall life expectancy in the U.S. in 1944. Anderson said his jaw just dropped when he saw that in the report.

Anderson said it was hard enough to fathom a 2.7-year decline over two years overall, but seeing a 6.6-year decline for the American Indian population just shows the substantial impact of the COVID pandemic on that population.

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