Life expectancy in the United States fell by a year and a half in 2020 primarily due to increases in death due to the Covid-19 pandemic, according to early data released by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
"U.S. life expectancy at birth for 2020, based on nearly final data, was 77.3 years, the lowest it has been since 2003," researchers at the CDC's National Center for Health Statistics wrote in a new report published on Wednesday.
US life expectancy declined from 78.8 years in 2019 to 77.3 years in 2020, the researchers reported, and Covid-19 deaths contributed to 73.8% of that decline.
The report was based on provisional data from death and birth records for the year 2020, processed by the National Center for Health Statistics. Since the study relied on recorded deaths and births, some deaths or births that had not yet been counted or recorded were not included in the early data.
