In this file photo taken on Jan. 10, 2021 a woman receives a dose of the Moderna coronavirus disease (COVID-19) vaccine at a vaccination site at South Bronx Educational Campus, in the Bronx New York. Image: AFP/Kena Betancur via AFP Relaxnews
The COVID-19 pandemic is expected to have a significant impact on life expectancy in the United States, a country which counts almost 340,000 deaths linked to the virus in 2020. Now, researchers in the U.S. estimate that life expectancy at birth could be shortened by over a year, with Black and Latino populations more particularly affected.
Researchers from the University of Southern California and Princeton University studied the impact of COVID-19 on life expectancy in the U.S., which they consider to be a significant indicator of a population’s health and an informative tool for examining the impact of COVID-19 on survival. Published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), their projections place the expected drop in life expectancy at birth for Americans due to the COVID-19 pandemic at 1.13 years to 77.48.
While these are still currently just projections, the researchers state that this represents the largest single-year decline in life expectancy in at least 40 years, and the lowest life expectancy estimated since 2003.
Minority populations more greatly impacted
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The study also suggests that declines in life expectancy are likely to be even starker among minority populations, particularly Blacks and Latinos. The scientists predict a 2.10-year drop in life expectancy for Blacks, to 72.78 years, and a 3.05-year drop for Latinos, to 78.77 years, compared to 0.68 for white Americans, whose life expectancy would fall to 77.84 years.
“The COVID-19 pandemic’s disproportionate effect on the life expectancy of Black and Latino Americans likely has to do with their greater exposure through their workplace or extended family contacts, in addition to receiving poorer health care, leading to more infections and worse outcomes,” explains Theresa Andrasfay from the University of Southern California.
