For the second year in a row, life expectancy continues to decline in the US.

First modification: 08/31/2022 – 15:54

Life expectancy in the United States has declined in 2021 for the second year in a row due to Covid-19 deaths, falling to its lowest level since 1996, according to the government.

At an average of 76.1 years, life expectancy is down almost one from 2020, the largest two-year decline recorded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

The gap in life expectancy between men and women also widened last year to its highest level in more than two decades.

Men have an average life expectancy of 73.2 years, almost six years less than women.

Covid-9 deaths contributed half of the overall decline in life expectancy last year, with more than 460,000 deaths from Covid-19, according to the CDC. Since the start of the pandemic, the country has recorded more than 1 million deaths.

In 2020, average life expectancy had recorded its biggest one-year decline since World War II.

“Mortality was lower in 2022 than it was in 2020, so I think we’re likely to see a slight increase in life expectancy,” said Robert Anderson, a statistician at the National Center for Health Statistics. However, he said life expectancy was unlikely to return to pre-pandemic levels this year.

Life expectancy was 77 years in 2020 and 78.8 years in 2019 in the United States.

The largest decline in life expectancy in 2021 concerns Native Americans (-1.9 years from 2020), followed by Caucasians (-1 years) and African Americans (-0.7 years) .

Native American life expectancy in 2021 was only 65.2 years. In the case of Afro-Americans, it was 70.8 years, compared to 76.4 for people of European origin.