As of: 09/27/2021 4:13 p.m.
A new study by researchers at Oxford University shows that life expectancy has fallen significantly during the pandemic – more so than it has been in decades. The USA are particularly affected.
In the wake of the corona pandemic, according to a study, life expectancy in many countries has fallen more sharply than it has been in Western Europe since the Second World War. In some countries the progress of the past few years has been ruined in a short time, report researchers from the Leverhulme Center for Demographic Science at the University of Oxford in the “International Journal of Epidemiology”. The decline in men was therefore greater than in women.
Examined data from 29 states
For the study, the scientists examined data from 29 countries, including predominantly European countries such as Germany, but also Chile and the USA. In 2020, life expectancy fell in 27 of these countries and by at least half a year in 22 countries.
“In Western European countries such as Spain, England and Wales, Italy, Belgium, such a decline in life expectancy in a single year at the time of birth was last observed during World War II,” said co-author José Manuel Aburto.
Hardest hit: the US
Life expectancy of men fell the most in the USA – namely by 2.2 years compared to 2019. In the USA, the rise in working-age mortality under 60 is particularly noteworthy, said co-author Ridhi Kashyap. In most European countries, on the other hand, mortality among those over 60 has increased in particular.
As early as June, a study in the British Medical Journal pointed to the drastic drop in life expectancy in the USA. Life expectancy is the age a newborn is likely to reach if the death toll continues to develop as it did when it was born.