U.S. life expectancy continues drastic decline, study finds

A new study published on Thursday on the wesbite medRxiv found that life expectancy in the U.S. has declined by 0.4 years in 2021, making it the second year in a row that the country’s life expectancy falls.

Covid-19 has been one of the top three causes of death for the past two years in the U.S., significantly impacting life expectancy. However, public health officials hoped that vaccines and herd immunity would prevent the second year of decline.

Yet, Life expectancy fell from 78.9 years in 2019 to 76.6 years in 2021—the lowest life expectancy in 25 years.

"Although the introduction and availability of effective vaccines were expected to curb US mortality rates in 2021, slow vaccine uptake and the spread of the Delta variant produced large surges in mortality," the researchers said.

Before the pandemic, U.S. life expectancy changed by less than 0.1 years annually over the last ten years, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

"This speaks volumes about the life consequences of how the U.S. handled the pandemic," Dr. Steven Woolf, one of the study's authors, said in a statement. "What happened in the U.S. is less about the variants than the levels of resistance to vaccination and the public's rejection of practices, such as masking and mandates, to reduce viral transmission."

In 2020, life expectancy in the U.S. saw the lowest one-year fall since World War II, according to the study. Last year, the drop in life expectancy affected Blacks and Hispanics the most.

However, the new study found that life expectancy among Hispanics did not significantly vary from last year. For Blacks, life expectancy increased slightly. In contrast, life expectancy for Whites fell by one-third of a year this year.

The study analyzed data from the National Center for Health Statistics, the Human Mortality Database, and other statistical agencies.