The Summary
- U.S. life expectancy jumped to 78.4 years last year, the highest it has been since 2019, before the pandemic.
- A decline in Covid deaths was a primary factor in the upward trend. Covid fell from the fourth-leading cause of death in 2022 to the 10th in 2023.
- Drug overdose deaths also decreased last year.
According to a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data, life expectancy in the United States increased last year and reached its greatest level since the start of the Covid pandemic.
According to the research, which was made public on Thursday, the average life expectancy in 2023 was 78.4 years. Compared to the life expectancy of 77.5 years in 2022, that is a substantial increase of almost a full year.
“The increase we had this year – the 0.9 year – that’s unheard of prior to the pandemic,” stated Ken Kochanek, a National Center for Health Statistics statistician who was a co-author of the assessment.
According to him, life expectancy in the US seldom increases or decreases by more than one or two tenths. However, there was a huge decline after COVID, and today there is a massive decline in COVID. Thus, life expectancy has increased significantly.
The life expectancy in the United States fell from 78.8 years to 76.4 years between 2019 and 2021.
According to the current research, COVID was the 10th top cause of mortality in 2023, a considerable decrease from its ranking as the fourth leading cause in 2022. According to a CDC research from August, COVID was the primary cause or contributory factor in over 76,000 deaths last year, compared to over 350,000 fatalities in 2020.
The review of death certificates from all 50 states as well as Washington, D.C., served as the basis for the new findings. According to the findings, the U.S. population’s total death rate dropped by 6%.
However, Kochanek pointed out that the decline in Covid-related fatalities does not negate the threat posed by the virus.
He stated, “It’s not going to disappear completely,” but it’s unclear if the number of deaths will keep declining before leveling out at a more steady yearly pace.
The new research states that heart disease, cancer, unintentional injuries, stroke, and chronic lower respiratory disorders were the top five causes of mortality in the United States last year. In 2023, the death rate from cancer was relatively constant, but the death rates from nine of the top ten causes decreased.
According to the CDC, drug overdoses are the primary cause of injury fatality in the United States, and they fall under the injuries category. For the first time since 2018, fewer people died from drug overdoses last year, according to a second CDC data issued Thursday.
Approximately 31.3 overdose deaths per 100,000 persons occurred in 2023, down from 32.6 in 2022. When broken down by age, those between the ages of 15 and 24 saw the biggest decline, at almost 10%.
Opioid-related overdose mortality decreased by 17% last year, with morphine, oxycodone, and hydrocodone being included in the category.
However, overdose deaths involving cocaine and psychostimulants like methamphetamine each rose slightly.
Additionally, the CDC examined U.S. death rates by gender, race, and ethnicity and discovered that the declines were not uniform.
The majority of racial and ethnic minority groups, such as Black, Asian, and Hispanic individuals, had greater declines than white people. Kochanek ascribed that to shifts in the death rates from COVID-19.
According to Kochanek, many of those populations are beginning at a higher plateau because their mortality rates have increased in recent years due to COVID. They can drop more easily.
The most sizable drops in death rates were among Hispanic men and women decreases of 10.5% and 8%, respectively and in American Indian and Alaska Native people, whose rates fell 11.5% for women and 13.5% for men.
Of the broader upward trend in life expectancy, Kochanek said simply: “We can only hope that it continues.”
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