Life expectancy in the United States has fallen in 2021 for the second year in a row, US media reports, based on the latest statistics released by the National Center for Health Statistics. “In 2019, reports public radio NPR, a person born in the United States had a life expectancy of nearly 80 years. In 2020, due to the pandemic, this figure fell to 77 years. In 2021, life expectancy fell again – to 76.1 years.”
Unheard of since the 1920s
It is, according to The New York Times, of “the biggest two-year drop in almost a century, a stark reminder of the price paid by the nation due to the still ongoing Covid pandemic”. Newspaper says more than 1 million Americans have died from Covid-19 “despite the availability of vaccines”.
One thing is certain, summarizes Robert Anderson, statistician at the National Center for Health Statistics:
“Many more people are dying faster than they should.”
A human health specialist from Virginia Commonwealth University, Steven Woolf, says the study results are worrying, especially for native people, who saw their life expectancy drop from 67.1 years in 2020 to 65. ,2 last year: “The losses of the Native American population have been terrible during the Covid-19 pandemic. And it reflects the many barriers that tribal communities face in accessing health care,” he explains to NPR.
Dr Woolf believes that the drop in life expectancy for white Americans to 76.4 years in 2021 could be explained by attitudes in some parts of the country towards vaccines and measures to contain the pandemic. . NPR adds that one of his analyzes showed that “Covid-19 death rates in counties supporting Donald Trump have been higher than in counties supporting President Biden”.
Reduced life expectancy among other Americans
The life expectancy of other Americans in 2021 has also fallen, but to a lesser extent: that of African Americans has reached 70.8 years, that of people of Hispanic origin 77.7 years, and that of Americans of Asian 83.5 years old.
The situation is not new, notes the Washington Post :
“Disparities in health between racial and ethnic groups in the country go back centuries. Marginalized people suffer the deleterious consequences of environmental, economic and political factors. They are thus exposed to a higher risk of chronic diseases that make their immune system vulnerable”.