Life expectancy in the United States fell as much as a year in the first half of 2020 as the coronavirus pandemic caused the first wave of deaths, health officials report.
Minorities suffered the greatest impact, with black Americans losing nearly three years and Hispanics nearly two years, according to preliminary estimates Thursday from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
“This is a huge drop,” said Robert Anderson, who oversees the numbers for the CDC. “You have to go back to World War II, the 1940s, to find such a decline.”
Other health experts say it demonstrates the profound impact of COVID-19 not only on deaths from infection, but also from heart disease, cancer and other conditions.
“What’s really striking about these numbers is that they only reflect the first half of the year … I would expect these numbers would only get worse,” said Dr. Kirsten Bibbins-Domingo, a health equality researcher and dean at the University of California, San Francisco.
This is the first time the CDC has reported on life expectancy from early, partial records; More death certificates from that period may be received. It is already known that 2020 was the deadliest year in US history, with more than 3 million deaths for the first time.
Life expectancy is how long a baby born today can live on average. In the first half of last year, this was 77.8 years for Americans in general, a year less than 78.8 in 2019. For men it was 75.1 years and for women 80.5 years.
As a group, Hispanics have had and still have the longest lifespan in the US. Black people are now six years behind in the life expectancy of whites, a reversal of a trend that has brought their numbers closer since 1993.
Between 2019 and the first half of 2020, life expectancy decreased by 2.7 years for black people to 72. It decreased by 1.9 years for Hispanics to 79.9 and 0.8 years for whites to 78. The preliminary report did not analyze trends for Asians. or Native Americans.
“Black and Hispanic communities in the United States are suffering from this pandemic,” said Bibbins-Domingo.
They are more likely to be on the front lines, low-paid jobs, living in crowded environments where the virus can spread more easily, and “there are large pre-existing health disparities in other circumstances” that increase their risk of death. COVID-19, she said.
More needs to be done to distribute vaccines fairly, improve working conditions and better protect minorities from infection, and include them in emergency economic measures, she said.
Dr. Otis Brawley, a cancer specialist and professor of public health at Johns Hopkins University, agreed.
“The focus really needs to be on a wide spread to get adequate care for every American. And health care must be defined as both prevention and treatment, ”he said.
Overall, the decline in life expectancy is more evidence of “our mishandling of the pandemic,” Brawley said.
“We have been devastated by the corona virus more than any other country. We make up 4% of the world’s population, more than 20% of all coronavirus deaths in the world, ”he said.
Not enough use of masks, early dependence on drugs like hydroxychloroquine, “which turned out to be worthless,” and other missteps meant that many Americans died needlessly, Brawley said.
“In the future, we need to practice the basics,” such as washing hands, taking physical distance and vaccinating as soon as possible to get prevention back on track, he said.
Marilynn Marchione can be followed on Twitter: @MarchioneAP
The Associated Press’s Health and Science Department is supported by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science Education Department. The AP is solely responsible for all content.