COVID-19 pandemic has caused the biggest decrease in life expectancy
since World War II, study finds

Date:
September 27, 2021
Source:
University of Oxford
Summary:
A dataset on mortality from 29 countries, spanning most of Europe,
the United States and Chile, found that 27 countries saw reductions
in life expectancy in 2020, and at a scale which wiped out years
of progress on mortality. The large declines in life expectancy
in the U.S. can partly be explained by the notable increase in
mortality at working ages observed in 2020.



FULL STORY ==========================================================================
The COVID-19 pandemic triggered life expectancy losses not seen since
World War II in Western Europe and exceeded those observed around the dissolution of the Eastern Bloc in central and Eastern European countries, according to research led by scientists at Oxford's Leverhulme Centre
for Demographic Science.


==========================================================================
The research team assembled an unprecedented dataset on mortality from
29 countries, spanning most of Europe, the US and Chile -- countries for
which official death registrations for 2020 had been published. They found
that 27 of the 29 countries saw reductions in life expectancy in 2020,
and at a scale which wiped out years of progress on mortality, according
to the paper published today in the International Journal of Epidemiology.

Women in 15 countries and men in 10 countries were found to have a lower expectancy at birth in 2020 than in 2015, a year in which life expectancy
was already negatively affected by a significant flu season.

According to the study's co-lead author Dr Jose' Manuel Aburto,
'For Western European countries such as Spain, England and Wales,
Italy, Belgium, among others, the last time such large magnitudes of
declines in life expectancy at birth were observed in a single year was
during WW-II.' But, he says, the scale of the life expectancy losses
was stark across most countries studied, '22 countries included in our
study experienced larger losses than half a year in 2020. Females in
eight countries and males in 11 countries experienced losses larger
than a year. To contextualize, it took on average 5.6 years for these
countries to achieve a one-year increase in life expectancy recently:
progress wiped out over the course of 2020 by COVID-19.' Across most
of the 29 countries, males saw larger life expectancy declines than
females. The largest declines in life expectancy were observed among
males in the US, who saw a decline of 2.2 years relative to 2019 levels, followed by Lithuanian males (1.7 years).

According to co-lead author, Dr Ridhi Kashyap, 'The large declines
in life expectancy observed in the US can partly be explained by the
notable increase in mortality at working ages observed in 2020. In the
US, increases in mortality in the under 60 age group contributed most significantly to life expectancy declines, whereas across most of Europe increases in mortality above age 60 contributed more significantly.'
In addition to these age patterns, the team's analysis reveals that most
life expectancy reductions across different countries were attributable
to official COVID-19 deaths.

Dr Kashyap adds, 'While we know that there are several issues linked
to the counting of COVID-19 deaths, such as inadequate testing or misclassification, the fact that our results highlight such a large impact
that is directly attributable to COVID-19 shows how devastating a shock
it has been for many countries. We urgently call for the publication and availability of more disaggregated data from a wider-range of countries, including low- and middle- income countries, to better understand the
impacts of the pandemic globally.' Life expectancy, also known as
period life expectancy, refers to the average age to which a newborn
live if current death rates continued for their whole life. It does not
predict an actual lifespan. It provides a snapshot of current mortality conditions and allows for a comparison of the size of the mortality
impacts of the pandemic between different countries and populations.

Note: Interactive visualizations of the paper's
main results/findings are available on this website: https://covid19.demographicscience.ox.ac.uk/ lifeexpectancy ========================================================================== Story Source: Materials provided by University_of_Oxford. Note: Content
may be edited for style and length.


========================================================================== Journal Reference:
1. Jose' Manuel Aburto, Jonas Scho"ley, Ilya Kashnitsky, Luyin Zhang,
Charles Rahal, Trifon I Missov, Melinda C Mills, Jennifer B Dowd,
Ridhi Kashyap. Quantifying impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic through
life- expectancy losses: a population-level study of 29 countries.

International Journal of Epidemiology, Sept. 27, 2021; DOI:
10.1093/ije/ dyab207 ==========================================================================

Link to news story: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/09/210927082247.htm

--- up 3 weeks, 4 days, 8 hours, 25 minutes
* Origin: -=> Castle Rock BBS <=- Now Husky HPT Powered! (1:317/3)