U.S. life expectancy falls for 2nd year in a row

Another value which confirms our sinking into the abyss. We pay double per person for healthcare and this is the crap we get.

We are now back to the 1990's for life expectancy in this country. In 2019 we had a 78.79 years life expectancy, now down to 76.6.



www.npr.org...

The analysis of provisional government statistics found U.S. life expectancy fell by just under a half a year in 2021, adding to a dramatic plummet in life expectancy that occurred in 2020.

Many of the deaths occurred in people in the prime of their lives, Woolf says, and drove the overall U.S. life expectancy to fall to 76.6 years — the lowest in at least 25 years.

The 2021 drop came after U.S life expectancy plummeted in 2020, tumbling by almost two years — the biggest one-year fall in U.S. life expectancy since at least World War II.

"The motivation for this study was to determine whether the horrible drop in life expectancy that we documented in 2020 resolved or rebounded in 2021 or whether there was a continued decline. Unfortunately, we did not find good news," Woolf told NPR in an interview.

Life expectancy only dropped by about a half a year in 2020 in countries like England, France and Germany, and then actually increased by about a third of a year in 2021, according to the analysis. So the gap between the U.S. and those countries grew from more than three years in 2019 to more than five years in 2021.

a reply to: infolurker

We pay double per person for healthcare and this is the crap we get.

Don't you think that is passing the buck , we are all responsible for our lifestyle and lifestyle choices play a big part in mortality.
Expanding waistlines = shortened life expectancy.

Take me it's a journey that really has no meaning I can understand , it's either we go lights out with no purpose or there's another journey either way it's coming and I'm getting tired .

a reply to: gortex

Really?
I know that obesity and diabetes are increasing as a first world health concern.

But, seems more like since 2019, there was an awful lot of deaths due to Covic and the vaccines.
And, it disproportionately affected those over 65.
Some of them were even part of the nursing homes death scandals.

originally posted by: infolurker
Another value which confirms our sinking into the abyss. We pay double per person for healthcare and this is the crap we get.

We are now back to the 1990's for life expectancy in this country. In 2019 we had a 78.79 years life expectancy, now down to 76.6.



www.npr.org...

The analysis of provisional government statistics found U.S. life expectancy fell by just under a half a year in 2021, adding to a dramatic plummet in life expectancy that occurred in 2020.

Many of the deaths occurred in people in the prime of their lives, Woolf says, and drove the overall U.S. life expectancy to fall to 76.6 years — the lowest in at least 25 years.

The 2021 drop came after U.S life expectancy plummeted in 2020, tumbling by almost two years — the biggest one-year fall in U.S. life expectancy since at least World War II.

"The motivation for this study was to determine whether the horrible drop in life expectancy that we documented in 2020 resolved or rebounded in 2021 or whether there was a continued decline. Unfortunately, we did not find good news," Woolf told NPR in an interview.

Life expectancy only dropped by about a half a year in 2020 in countries like England, France and Germany, and then actually increased by about a third of a year in 2021, according to the analysis. So the gap between the U.S. and those countries grew from more than three years in 2019 to more than five years in 2021.

That NPR article you cited is based on a recently released scientific study. Here is a link to the original study:

www.medrxiv.org...

The introduction to the study report says, in part:

"Prior studies reported large decreases in US life expectancy during 2020 as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, disproportionately affecting Hispanic and Black populations and vastly exceeding the average change in life expectancy in other high-income countries. "

In other words, the large decrease in life expectancy in 2020 was due to the Covid pandemic and the way we handled it in 2020. (Or mishandled it, if you want to look at it that way, when compared to other modern countries.)

The estimated decrease in 2021 was much smaller than in 2020, presumably due to the introduction of vaccines at the beginning of that year.