Life expectancy statistics in 2020 took a steep dive downward, largely because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported recently that the average person born in 2020 can expect to live 77.0 years. That is a drop of nearly two years from the 2019 figure of 78.8. It’s the first time since 2007 that life expectancy has fallen below 78 years, and it represents the largest one-year decrease since 1943, when the country was in the middle of World War II and a lot of soldiers were dying.
For men, the 2019-to-2020 comparison is 76.3 to 74.2, down 2.1 years. For women, it’s 81.4 to 79.9, down 1.5 years.
COVID-19 is a big driver of this decline, to the point that it ranked as the third-most-frequent cause of death in 2020, trailing only the longtime fatality leaders of heart disease and cancer. But it’s not the only factor.
The CDC reported that 3.38 million people died in the United States in 2020 — an increase of nearly 529,000 from the year before.
However, COVID-19 was the underlying cause of death that year for an estimated 350,000 people, or about two-thirds of the increase. There have been claims admittedly that COVID deaths are undercounted, but nevertheless, a chunk of these additional deaths has to be coming from causes other than the pandemic.
One suspect would be the country’s ongoing struggle with prescription opioid addiction, which during the past decade basically put a stop to six decades of steadily rising life expectancy numbers. Another would be the continually rising rate of obesity, which brings a bundle of health risks with it.
Aside from COVID-19, the CDC said that six of the country’s top 10 causes of death increased in numbers in 2020. Categories reporting more deaths included heart disease, “unintentional injuries,” strokes, Alzheimer’s disease, diabetes, and influenza or pneumonia.
The most worrisome thing about the 2020 decline is that it’s larger than those reported by many other countries, all of which had to deal with COVID-19. The National Library of Medicine website has a chart of life expectancy changes among 37 countries, most of them in Europe. Russia’s decline was the only one larger than America’s.
Speculating about the recently completed 2021, there’s no reason to believe the life expectancy numbers in the United States will improve. Another 400,000 or more Americans died of COVID-19 last year. Perhaps the best we can hope for is to avoid another steep drop in life expectancy. Right now, however, the obvious message is that too many people are dying.
