Life expectancy in the United States increased slightly in 2022, according to official data, but remains at its lowest level in almost 20 years.
CDC figures show that a person born today can now expect to live 77 years and two and a half months, just over a year longer than in 2021, when the Covid pandemic was still raging.
It’s the first time life expectancy has increased in two years, but the figure remains at its lowest level since 2003 – and lags behind that of 2019, before Covid hit, when he was 78 years and nine months.
Researchers today warned that the declines represented a “flashing red light” highlighting the decline in the health of the country’s population – amid rising obesity rates.
Life expectancy in the United States continues to lag behind that of its European peers, including in Germany, where people born today can expect to live an average of 81 years and eight months, or five years longer than their American counterparts.
The chart above shows life expectancy in the United States by year, from 1980 to 2022. There has been a slight increase over the most recent year for which data is available.
Although the United States is recovering from a surge in Covid deaths, the country still ranks well below other developed countries. Even accounting for recent increases in life expectancy, countries like Japan, France and Sweden rank much higher.
It also lags behind a number of other European countries, including the UK, Austria, France and Switzerland.
In the UK, for comparison, men can expect to live four years longer than their American counterparts, while women can expect to live three years longer.
Life expectancy in the United States is also nearly five years lower than that of its Canadian neighbor, where people born today can currently expect to live 81 years and four months.
Dr. Steven Woolf, a population health expert at Virginia Commonwealth University, said: CNN: “Simply put, the fact that life expectancy in 2022 was lower than in 2019 means that Americans are continuing to die at higher rates than before the pandemic, despite the rebound.
“We’re barely out of the woods.”
He added of the increase in child deaths: “It’s a flashing red signal about the poor health of Americans and how that is now putting our children at risk.” »
“This trend… is nevertheless alarming because it means that our children, our most cherished population, are less likely to survive to adulthood.”
The CDC report calculated life expectancy at birth based on nearly 3.3 million deaths recorded in 2022, 184,300 fewer than in 2021.
They also analyzed death rates by age group to reveal trends and determine whether rates were increasing among certain groups.
The report did not give a reason for the increase in life expectancy, although it highlighted a decline in death rates from Covid as more people become immune to the virus.
Data showed that Covid deaths fell by 57% between 2021 and 2022 and that Covid went from third to fourth deadliest in the United States during the same period.
Heart disease and cancer remain the two leading causes of death in the United States.
Unintentional injuries – such as car accidents – rose from fourth to third cause of death and kidney disease rose from tenth to ninth place.
Life expectancy in the United States has been rising for decades, from about 50 years in 1900 to nearly 77 years at the turn of the century.
But after the arrival of Covid, life expectancy saw its biggest decline since the Second World War – falling by a year and six months between 2019 and 2020.
The record was set in 2014, when the average American was estimated to live 78 years and ten months after birth.
The table above shows life expectancy at birth in the United States for the last two years for which data is available.
The CDC said the increase in life expectancy was partly due to a drop in Covid deaths
The CDC report also looked at death rates across all age groups, which declined among older people but increased among babies and young children.
Infant mortality data showed the rate was 560.4 deaths per 100,000 live births in 2022, an increase of 3.1% from the previous year.
The rate also increased by 12 percent among children aged one to four, from 25 to 28 deaths per 100,000 population, and by 7 percent among those aged five to 14, from 14.3 to 15. ,3.
The report does not suggest the cause of this change, although Dr Woolf previously suggested it was linked to an increase in drug overdoses and car accidents in the children’s age group. For babies, there have been growing concerns about the decline of maternity care in the United States for years.
Dr Woolf said: “It is important to note that these are the same causes of death that have claimed the lives of young adults in their 20s.
“This means that causes of death that claimed the lives of young adults have now spread to younger age groups, claiming the lives of adolescents.”