7.17.21
By Son of Inequity
Researchers from Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) conducted a sweeping analysis of the impact of Covid-19 on the U.S. and 16 other comparable nations and found that U.S. life expectancies dropped dramatically compared with these “peer countries,” with significant drops in the life expectancies of both African and Hispanic Americans.
The paper, titled “Effect of the covid-19 pandemic in 2020 on life expectancy across populations in the USA and other high-income countries: simulations of provisional mortality data,” published in the June 24 2021 issue of the British Medical Journal, compared the impact of the pandemic of life expectancy in the U.S. and peer countries of comparable wealth and access to advanced healthcare.
As the authors explain: “Peer countries included 16 high income democracies with adequate data for analysis: Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Israel, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, South Korea, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, and the United Kingdom.”
Even prior to Covid, the researchers found the U.S. lagging behind this peer group in average life expectancy: “Between 2010 and 2018, the gap in life expectancy between the US and the peer country average increased from 1.88 years (78.66 v 80.54 years, respectively) to 3.05 years (78.74 v 81.78 years).”
The ominous trend accelerated during the peak of the pandemic, the research found: “Between 2018 and 2020, life expectancy in the US decreased by 1.87 years (to 76.87 years), 8.5 times the average decrease in peer countries (0.22 years), widening the gap to 4.69 years.” But the most staggering decreases in life expectancy occurred among Hispanic and African Americans, according to the VCU analysis:
“Life expectancy in the US decreased disproportionately among racial and ethnic minority groups between 2018 and 2020, declining by 3.88, 3.25, and 1.36 years in Hispanic, non-Hispanic Black, and non-Hispanic White populations, respectively. In Hispanic and non-Hispanic Black populations, reductions in life expectancy were 18 and 15 times the average in peer countries, respectively. Progress since 2010 in reducing the gap in life expectancy in the US between Black and White people was erased in 2018-20; life expectancy in Black men reached its lowest level since 1998 (67.73 years), and the longstanding Hispanic life expectancy advantage almost disappeared.”