The life expectancy of Americans fell by a year and a half in 2020, the biggest drop since World War II, according to the main federal public health agency, which largely attributes the cause to the Covid pandemic. 19.
This worrying trend is sharply accentuated for black and Hispanic ethnic minorities, according to statistics released Wednesday by the Centers for Disease Prevention and Control (CDC).
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The life expectancy of Americans at birth has increased from 78.8 years in 2019 to 77.3 years in 2020. This span of 77.3 years is the shortest since 2003. For African Americans, expectancy life drops by 2.9 years, from 74.7 years in 2019 to 71.8 years in 2020. For Latinos, it drops by three years, from 81.8 years in 2019 to 78.8 years in 2020. The The greatest decline concerns men of Hispanic origin, who lose 3.7 years of life expectancy at birth, a situation 90% of which can be explained by the devastation of Covid-19.
Covid and opiates involved
More than 3.3 million Americans died last year, a record number in US history, with Covid-19 being the cause of about 11% of those deaths.
Another important factor is the rise in drug overdose deaths, a crisis that existed before the onset of the coronavirus, but which has worsened: more than 93,000 people have died from overdoses in the United States in 2020, a level never seen before. linked to an increase in opioid use during the pandemic.
From 2014 to 2018, life expectancy in the United States declined as a result of opioid overdoses, particularly synthetic opiates, such as fentanyl.
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Another interesting conclusion to draw from the report released on Wednesday by the CDC, the widening of the gap in life expectancy of Americans at birth between men and women, which has fallen from 5.1 years in 2019 to 5.7 years. in 2020. In detail, female life expectancy fell in one year from 81.4 to 80.2 years. Male life expectancy has increased from 76.3 years to 74.5 years.