The COVID-19 pandemic, which claimed more than 336,000 lives in the United States in 2020, has significantly affected life expectancy, researchers (Princeton) have found.
The researchers project that, due to the pandemic deaths last year, life expectancy at birth for Americans will shorten by 1.13 years to 77.48 years, according to their study published Thursday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
That is the largest single-year decline in life expectancy in at least 40 years and is the lowest life expectancy estimated since 2003.
The declines in life expectancy are likely even starker among minority populations. For Blacks, the researchers project their life expectancy would shorten by 2.10 years to 72.78 years, and for Latinos, by 3.05 years to 78.77 years.
Whites are also impacted, but their projected decline is much smaller — 0.68 years — to a life expectancy of 77.84 years.
https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2014746118
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USC study: COVID-19 reduced U.S. life expectancy, especially among Black and Latino populations