Life expectancy in the United States dropped 1.8 years between 2019 and 2020, data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show.
The life expectancy for the entire U.S. in 2020 was 77 years, with 74.2 years for males and 79.9 years for females, according to a National Vital Statistics System report from the CDC.
AT LEAST 80% OF CHILDREN EXPOSED TO COVID-19 IN MAJORITY OF STATES: CDC DATA
New York saw the largest drop in life expectancy, at three years, and Hawaii had the smallest drop, just 0.2 years.
The CDC attributed the drop in life expectancy largely to the coronavirus pandemic, which was the third-leading cause of death in 2020 behind heart disease and cancer, respectively.
In a separate report called “Mortality in the United States,” a total of 3,383,729 deaths were recorded in 2020, 528,891 more than in 2019. Of 2020’s registered deaths, 10.4% listed COVID-19 as the underlying cause of death, with 350,831 recorded.
Mississippi remained the state with the lowest life expectancy, at 71.9 years, and Hawaii had the highest life expectancy, at 80.7 years.
The top 10 states with high life expectancies were mostly Western and Northeastern states. The bottom 10 with low life expectancies were mostly Southern states.
Several factors could contribute to the range of life expectancies that vary from state to state. USA Today reported that Mississippi, as well as other states with low life expectancies, tend to have large poverty rates and increased reports of unhealthy behaviors.
In 2021, U.S. News released its report of the top 10 states with the highest poverty rates based on Census Bureau data. The 10 states found to have the highest poverty rates were the same states in the National Vitality Statistics System report that had the lowest life expectancies.
Those states, in the lowest poverty rate order, were Mississippi, Louisiana, New Mexico, Kentucky, Arkansas, West Virginia, Alabama, Oklahoma, Tennessee, and South Carolina. The order remained virtually the same among the bottom 10 life expectancy states, with a few switches.
Washington, D.C., held the largest difference in life expectancy between males and females, at seven years. Utah had the lowest difference in sex at 3.9 years.
Unintentional deaths, such as drug overdoses, moved from the third-leading cause to the fourth.
In November 2021, the CDC wrote in a press release that there were over 100,000 drug overdose-related deaths registered over a 12-month period ending in April 2021 — a 28.5% increase from the previous time period, which had over 78,000 recorded deaths.
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The CDC continues to operate a dashboard tracking the number of drug overdose-related deaths in the U.S. It is updated to March 2022.
In the 12-month period ending in March, there were 104,671. The dashboard predicts there are approximately an additional 5,000 deaths for that time period, pending data collection.
