Life Expectancy Down in U.S. After Pandemic
U.S. life expectancy has dropped by nearly a year on average since 2021, according to the CDC. COVID was a big factor; it joins heart disease and cancer as the top three causes of death. Among individual groups, non-Hispanic American Indian-Alaskan Native people had the biggest drop in life expectancy—1.9 years. That group already has a lower expectancy than average, at 65.2 years, which was the average life expectancy in the U.S. in 1944. Non-Hispanic whites’ life expectancy dropped one year in 2021, from 77.4 to 76.4. The U.S. is well behind other nations on this. According to the World Population Review, more than 50 countries have longer life expectancy than the U.S.