Life Expectancy

Health
Written By Alysha Rashid

Sparked by the Covid crisis, life expectancy has declined by 4+ years for Black, Hispanic, and American Indian populations.

Life expectancy at birth by race/ethnicity, U.S.

2019-21

Source: CDC National Center for Health Statistics Data Brief and Report. Notes: Life expectancy at birth is defined as how long, on average, a newborn can expect to live, if current death rates do not change. However, the actual age-specific death rate of any particular birth cohort cannot be known in advance. Estimates for 2021 for race/ethnicity are provisional. Race is for the non-Hispanic population.

Life expectancy in the U.S. dropped in 2021 for a second year in a row, losing 25 years of progress and reaching its lowest level since 1996.1 (In comparison, studies show that peer nations had modest increases in life expectancy from 2020 to 2021.2,3) Life expectancy declined from 78.8 years in 2019 to 76.4 in 2021, a loss of 2.4 years. Based on provisional 2021 data, the declines were greater for Black, Hispanic, and American Indian/Alaska Native (AIAN) populations. Black Americans saw a 4.0 year decrease, while AIAN saw a massive 6.6 year decrease from 2019 to 2021, bringing life expectancy to 70.8 years and 65.2 years, respectively. Though life expectancy for Hispanic populations (77.7 years) is still above the overall U.S. life expectancy, there was a 4.2 year decrease from 2019 to 2021. While Covid was a significant contributor in driving down life expectancy, health disparities rooted in discrimination and systemic racism have long impacted these populations.4,5,6,7,8

8 of the 10 leading causes of death in 2019 remained the same in both 2020 and 2021, with newly added Covid becoming the third highest cause, surpassed only by heart disease and cancer.9,10,11 Over the last 3 years, the nation has seen 400,000 excess deaths among working-age Americans due to Covid as well as other causes such as overdoses, suicides, motor vehicle deaths, and pregnacy-related deaths (Motor Vehicle Deaths, Maternal Mortality).12

  1. “New Report Confirms U.S. Life Expectancy has Declined to Lowest Level Since 1996”. CDC. December, 2022. https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/pressroom/nchs_press_releases/2022/20221222.htm 

  2. “CHANGES IN LIFE EXPECTANCY BETWEEN 2019 AND 2021 IN THE UNITED STATES AND 21 PEER COUNTRIES”. Masters, Aron, and Woolf. medRxiv. June, 2022. https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2022.04.05.22273393v4

  3. “U.S. Life Expectancy Is in Decline. Why Aren’t Other Countries Suffering the Same Problem?” Klobucista. Council on Foreign Relations. September, 2022. https://www.cfr.org/in-brief/us-life-expectancy-decline-why-arent-other-countries-suffering-same-problem 

  4. “Provisional Life Expectancy Estimates for 2021”. Arias, Tejada-Vera, Kochanek, and Ahmad. CDC. August, 2022. https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/vsrr/vsrr023.pdf 

  5. “Key Facts on Health and Health Care by Race and Ethnicity”. Hill, Artiga, and Haldar. Kaiser Family Foundation. January, 2022. https://www.kff.org/report-section/key-facts-on-health-and-health-care-by-race-and-ethnicity-health-status-outcomes-and-behaviors/

  6. “Implicit Bias and Racial Disparities in Health Care”. Bridges. American Bar Association. https://www.americanbar.org/groups/crsj/publications/human_rights_magazine_home/the-state-of-healthcare-in-the-united-states/racial-disparities-in-health-care/

  7. “Why life expectancy in the US is falling”. Shmerling. Harvard Medical School. October, 2022. https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/why-life-expectancy-in-the-us-is-falling-202210202835

  8. “Why Native Americans Are Dying Sooner”. Gounder. Time. October, 2022. https://time.com/6219765/native-americans-life-expectancy/

  9. “Mortality in the United States, 2019”. Kochanek, Xu, and Arias. CDC. December, 2020. https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/products/databriefs/db395.htm

  10. “Mortality in the United States, 2020”. Murphy, Kochanek, Xu, and Arias. CDC. December, 2021. https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/products/databriefs/db427.htm#section_4

  11. “Mortality in the United States, 2021”. Xu, Murphy, Kochanek, Arias. CDC. December, 2022. https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/products/databriefs/db456.htm#Key_finding

  12. “Inflation and the Labor Market”. Powell. Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System. November, 2022. https://www.federalreserve.gov/newsevents/speech/powell20221130a.htm

Alysha Rashid
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