Life expectancy at birth fell by 1.8 years in 2020, from 78.8 years in 2019 to 77 years, the biggest drop in more than 75 years since World War II.
The death rate — about 835 deaths per 100,000 people — has risen nearly 17% since 2019, the steepest increase in more than a century since the CDC tracks this data.
The year-on-year increase was even greater among racial and ethnic minorities, with the death rate for Hispanic people rising about three times as much as for whites and the death rate for blacks rising about twice as much as for whites. The death rate for Hispanic men increased by almost 43% and the death rate for black men increased by 28%, while the death rate for white men increased by about 13% as of 2019.
In 2020, the death rates for black men — 1,399 deaths per 100,000 people — were higher than any other group, while the death rates for Hispanic women — 570 per 100,000 people — were the lowest.
Overall, the difference in life expectancy between men and women widened in 2020, with women expected to live nearly six years longer than men: 79.9 years, compared to 74.2 years.
Covid-19 was the third leading cause of death overall, accounting for more than 10% of all deaths in 2020. Final death data from the CDC shows that Covid-19 was the underlying cause of death for 350,831 people in 2020.
Experts say the racial and ethnic disparities in the rise in the death rate mirror that of Covid-19.
for dr. Steven Woolf, director emeritus of Virginia Commonwealth University’s Center on Society and Health, which has published research on recent trends in life expectancy, called the inequality “shocking.”
“We see it over and over, generation after generation,” Woolf told DailyExpertNews. “As a doctor, there’s no logical reason why someone should be more likely to die from a virus because of their skin color. It’s completely a product of what society has done.”
Outbreaks of life expectancy data for racial and ethnic groups will be available soon, once the records are more fully connected, Bob Anderson, chief statistician of death rates for the CDC, told DailyExpertNews. But Covid-19 disproportionately affected a much younger group of people in the Hispanic and black populations, which will have a disproportionate effect on life expectancy for those groups.
“Changes in mortality at a younger age have a greater impact on life expectancy. There is so much more potential to live at a younger age,” Anderson said.
Heart disease and cancer remained the leading causes of death in 2020 and, along with Covid-19, accounted for about half of all deaths in the US for the year.
Other major causes include accidental injuries, stroke, chronic lower respiratory tract disease, Alzheimer’s disease, diabetes, influenza and pneumonia, and kidney disease.
Death rates for most of these leading causes were higher in 2020 than in 2019, with deaths rising nearly 15% from diabetes and nearly 17% from accidental injuries, including overdose deaths.
Preliminary data published by the CDC showed drug overdose deaths exceeded 100,000 per year for the first time during the 12-month period ending April 2021.
And while the number of diabetes deaths has risen slightly over the past decade, it hasn’t been nearly as dramatic as the latest increase.
Anderson said it’s hard to know exactly what’s causing that, but it’s likely that Covid-19 played a role.
“We know that people with diabetes are more prone to more serious diseases, and part of that increase could be Covid deaths that went undetected,” he said. “More likely in diabetes, the increase is likely more in foregone care: people who don’t see their doctor or get the care they need during the pandemic.”
In fact, Woolf says much of the increased death rate in 2020 was directly or indirectly linked to Covid-19.
Some deaths may have been attributed to conditions that exacerbated Covid-19, and many others were due to limited access to health care during the pandemic, he said — such as those situations where patients were afraid to call 911 during an emergency such as a heart attack or stroke. , those where the maintenance of chronic diseases such as diabetes has lapsed or those where the mental health crisis has been exacerbated by stress or isolation.
“As big as that share was in 2020, (it will be) bigger in 2021,” Woolf said. “The proportion of deaths that could have been prevented in 2021 will be huge.”
According to CDC data, death rates for every age group 15 and older rose in 2020, and life expectancy was revised downwards from preliminary estimates.
But infant mortality reached a record low. There were about 542 deaths per 100,000 live births in 2020, a decrease of about 3% from 2019.
