US life expectancy dropped a staggering full year in first half of 2020 and widened racial inequities, according to new

CDC data - CNN 2021-02-17, 10(54 PM

US life expectancy dropped a full

LIVE TV

year in first half of 2020, according

to CDC
By Deidre McPhillips
! Updated 12:48 AM ET, Thu February 18, 2021

(CNN) — Life expectancy in the US dropped a full year in the first half of 2020, according to a report published
Thursday by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's National Center for Health Statistics. Experts
say that Covid-19 was a significant factor contributing to the decline.

The life expectancy for the entire US population fell to 77.8 years, similar to what it was in 2006, CDC data
shows.

Changes to life expectancy also widened racial and ethnic inequities. Compared to 2019, life expectancy for
non-Hispanic Black people in the US fell about three times what it did for non-Hispanic White people, by 2.7
years. It fell by twice as much for Hispanic people, by 1.9 years.

Life-expectancy disparities between Black people and

White people had been shrinking in recent years, but these
latest figures reverse some of that progress.

Over the past 40 years, life expectancy has increased

slowly but rarely declined. Between 2014 and 2017 -- a
peak period of the opioid epidemic -- life expectancy
declined a third of a year, which itself was significant.

Life-expectancy estimates before 1980 have been

measured less consistently, but experts told CNN that
estimates for drops in life expectancy after World War II
range from less than a year to three years.
Related Article: New CDC reports warn
variants could lead to rapid rise in Covid- The pandemic has taken a massive toll on the US
population. About 490,000 people have lost their lives to
19 cases the disease, and the CDC estimates excess deaths in 2020
to be even higher..

"A year of life expectancy lost doesn't really give you a true sense of how serious this has been. Millions of life
years were actually lost," Eileen Crimmins, a professor at the University of Southern California who has
researched changes in mortality, told CNN. "Covid is on track to cause more deaths than cancer or heart
disease, and that's important."

Most deaths due to Covid-19 have been among older adults, which would have a small eXect on overall life
expectancy.

https://www.cnn.com/2021/02/18/health/life-expectancy-fell-pandemic/index.html Page 1 of 4
US life expectancy dropped a staggering full year in first half of 2020 and widened racial inequities, according to new CDC data - CNN 2021-02-17, 10(54 PM

But Theresa Andrasfay, a researcher at the University of

Southern California who has published work on the
potential impact of Covid-19 on life expectancy, notes that
while deaths among younger adults may be less common,
the numbers are still substantial.

"Those deaths have a significant eXect on life expectancy

because they contribute to more foregone years of life,"
she told CNN.

Disparities in years lost among Black and Hispanic people

Related Article: Covid-19 is sending
Black, Latino and Native American people
to the hospital at about 4 times the rate
of others
are in line with the disproportionate eXect Covid-19 has
had on communities of color. Hispanic and non-Hispanic
Black people are both about twice as likely to die of Covid-
19 than non-Hispanic White people, according to the latest
data from the CDC.
"At the beginning of the pandemic, we may have thought
this was a virus that aXected everyone equally," Andrasfay
said. "We were aware of these longstanding health
disparities, but this really drives home how the Black and
Latino communities were disproportionately aXected."

The new life-expectancy estimates from the CDC mark the

first time the agency has published these figures using
provisional data that comes from death certificates that
were received and processed for the first half of 2020.

Because it is based on deaths recorded between January

Related Article: New York o^cials plan
to redouble eXorts to fix racial disparities
in vaccination rates
and June, the report notes that the estimates "do not
reflect the entirety of the eXects of the COVID-19 pandemic
in 2020, or other changes in causes of death."
Certain geographic areas were aXected more than others
earlier in the pandemic, and timely reporting of deaths
varies by jurisdiction.

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US life expectancy dropped a staggering full year in first half of 2020 and widened racial inequities, according to new CDC data - CNN 2021-02-17, 10(54 PM

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US life expectancy dropped a staggering full year in first half of 2020 and widened racial inequities, according to new CDC data - CNN 2021-02-17, 10(54 PM

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