USA: Life expectancy increases, but is lower than before the pandemic

The life expectancy of Americans increased by more than a year last year, but is still much lower than it was before the pandemic of COVID-19.

The increase recorded in 2022 was mainly due to the decline of the pandemic, researchers from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said on Wednesday. But even with the significant increase, life expectancy is only 77 years and 6 months, about where it was two decades ago.

Life expectancy is the estimate of how long a baby born in a specific year will live, assuming that mortality rates remain the same. The figure is considered one of the most important measures of the health of the American population. The calculations issued on Wednesday, corresponding to 2022, are provisional and could vary slightly once the estimates are finalized.

For decades, the life expectancy of Americans grew slightly almost every year. But about a decade ago, the trend flattened and in some years even declined, attributed to overdose deaths and suicides.

Then came the pandemic, which has killed more than 1.1 million people in the United States since the beginning of 2020. The life expectancy of Americans plummeted: from 78 years and 10 months in 2019 to 77 years in 2020, and then to 76 years and 5 months in 2021.

“We have basically lost 20 months of progress,” said Elizabeth Arias of the CDC. The decline in COVID-19 deaths led to the increase recorded in 2022.

In 2021, the coronavirus was the third leading cause of death among Americans, after heart disease and cancer. Last year it dropped to be the fourth cause of deaths. Although there is more than a month left until the end of the year, preliminary data suggests that COVID-19 has become the ninth or tenth cause of deaths.

However, the United States is combating other public health problems, such as drug overdoses and suicides.