While life expectancy is rebounding in parts of the world, white deaths drive a further U.S. drop.
The peer countries cited by the researchers were Austria, Belgium, Denmark, England and Wales, Finland, France, Germany, Israel, Italy, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Northern Ireland, Norway, and Portugal. Spain, Scotland, Korea, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland. They calculated life expectancy figures using official numbers for 2019 and 2020 and estimated for 2021 using a validated modeling approach.
Professor Noreen Goldman, a demographer at Princeton University who was not involved in the study, said the approach was “reasonable. However, she notes that all estimates are subject to reporting delays, and it’s important to stress that the findings are preliminary.
The US life expectancy estimate for 2021 has yet to be officially reported by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and won’t be available for at least a few more months, said Professor Goldman.
Since life expectancy calculations reflect the conditions in the year they were made, they are expected to change in the coming years. For example, from 1917 to 1918, during the flu pandemic, US life expectancy plummets, 11.8 years oldbut quickly rebounded.
However, Laudan Aron, a senior fellow at the Urban Institute’s Center for Health Policy and one of the study’s authors, emphasizes “U.S. health detriment,” a term widely used in the United States. set out in 2013 report she helped write. “Even Americans with access to the best that America has to offer is not performing well in terms of health.” They are less healthy than their UK counterparts, she said, and the structural problems associated with systemic racism and inequality could undermine positive outcomes for everyone.
Professor Goldman highlights research showing that from 2000 onward, the life expectancy of a 50-year-old woman in the richest fifth of US counties is lower than if she lived in one fifth of the region. Japan’s poorest legal And U.S. life expectancy has largely stagnated and declined since then, she said.
Margot Sanger-Katz contributed reporting.
