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During the pandemic, Native Americans’ life expectancy dropped more than in any other racial or ethnic group. Essentially, they lost nearly 5 years. And they already had the lowest life expectancy of any racial or ethnic group.
Researchers from the University of Colorado-Boulder, the Urban Institute, and Virginia Commonwealth University compared life expectancy changes during 2019-2021 in the United States and 21 peer countries. The study is the first to estimate such changes in non-Hispanic American Indian/Alaska Native and Asian populations. The researchers were taken aback by their findings.
In those 2 years, Americans overall saw a net loss of 2.41 years: Life expectancy declined from 78.85 years in 2019 to 76.98 years in 2020 and 76.44 in 2021. Surprisingly, peer countries not only saw a much smaller loss (0.55 year), but actually had an increase of 0.26 year between 2020 and 2021. The US decline was 8.5 times greater than that of the average decline among 16 other high-income countries during the same period. “It’s like nothing we have seen since World War II,” said Dr. Steven Woolf, one of the coauthors of the study.
The decrease in life expectancy—or, put another way, mortality—was “highly racialized” in the United States, the researchers say. The largest drops in 2020 were among non-Hispanic American Indian/Alaska Native (4.48 years), Hispanic (3.72 years), non-Hispanic Black (3.20 years), and non-Hispanic Asian (1.83 years) populations. In 2021, the largest decreases were in the non-Hispanic White population. The reasons for the “surprising crossover” in outcomes are not entirely clear, the researchers say, and likely have multiple explanations.
However, the patterns, they note, “reflect a long history of systemic racism” and “inadequacies in how the pandemic was managed in the United States.” In a university news release, study coauthor Ryan Masters, PhD, said, “The US didn’t take COVID seriously to the extent that other countries did, and we paid a horrific price for it, with Black and brown people suffering the most.”
The researchers expected to see a decline among Native Americans, Masters said, because they often lack access to vaccines, quality health care, and transportation. But the magnitude of the drop in life expectancy was “shocking.” He added, “You just don’t see numbers like this in advanced countries in the modern day.”
Noting that the troubling downward trend in life expectancy had been on view even before the pandemic, Masters said, “This isn’t just a COVID problem. There are broader social and economic policies that placed the United States at a disadvantage long before this pandemic. The time to address them is long overdue.”
During the pandemic, Native Americans’ life expectancy dropped more than in any other racial or ethnic group. Essentially, they lost nearly 5 years. And they already had the lowest life expectancy of any racial or ethnic group.
Researchers from the University of Colorado-Boulder, the Urban Institute, and Virginia Commonwealth University compared life expectancy changes during 2019-2021 in the United States and 21 peer countries. The study is the first to estimate such changes in non-Hispanic American Indian/Alaska Native and Asian populations. The researchers were taken aback by their findings.
In those 2 years, Americans overall saw a net loss of 2.41 years: Life expectancy declined from 78.85 years in 2019 to 76.98 years in 2020 and 76.44 in 2021. Surprisingly, peer countries not only saw a much smaller loss (0.55 year), but actually had an increase of 0.26 year between 2020 and 2021. The US decline was 8.5 times greater than that of the average decline among 16 other high-income countries during the same period. “It’s like nothing we have seen since World War II,” said Dr. Steven Woolf, one of the coauthors of the study.
The decrease in life expectancy—or, put another way, mortality—was “highly racialized” in the United States, the researchers say. The largest drops in 2020 were among non-Hispanic American Indian/Alaska Native (4.48 years), Hispanic (3.72 years), non-Hispanic Black (3.20 years), and non-Hispanic Asian (1.83 years) populations. In 2021, the largest decreases were in the non-Hispanic White population. The reasons for the “surprising crossover” in outcomes are not entirely clear, the researchers say, and likely have multiple explanations.
However, the patterns, they note, “reflect a long history of systemic racism” and “inadequacies in how the pandemic was managed in the United States.” In a university news release, study coauthor Ryan Masters, PhD, said, “The US didn’t take COVID seriously to the extent that other countries did, and we paid a horrific price for it, with Black and brown people suffering the most.”
The researchers expected to see a decline among Native Americans, Masters said, because they often lack access to vaccines, quality health care, and transportation. But the magnitude of the drop in life expectancy was “shocking.” He added, “You just don’t see numbers like this in advanced countries in the modern day.”
Noting that the troubling downward trend in life expectancy had been on view even before the pandemic, Masters said, “This isn’t just a COVID problem. There are broader social and economic policies that placed the United States at a disadvantage long before this pandemic. The time to address them is long overdue.”
During the pandemic, Native Americans’ life expectancy dropped more than in any other racial or ethnic group. Essentially, they lost nearly 5 years. And they already had the lowest life expectancy of any racial or ethnic group.
Researchers from the University of Colorado-Boulder, the Urban Institute, and Virginia Commonwealth University compared life expectancy changes during 2019-2021 in the United States and 21 peer countries. The study is the first to estimate such changes in non-Hispanic American Indian/Alaska Native and Asian populations. The researchers were taken aback by their findings.
In those 2 years, Americans overall saw a net loss of 2.41 years: Life expectancy declined from 78.85 years in 2019 to 76.98 years in 2020 and 76.44 in 2021. Surprisingly, peer countries not only saw a much smaller loss (0.55 year), but actually had an increase of 0.26 year between 2020 and 2021. The US decline was 8.5 times greater than that of the average decline among 16 other high-income countries during the same period. “It’s like nothing we have seen since World War II,” said Dr. Steven Woolf, one of the coauthors of the study.
The decrease in life expectancy—or, put another way, mortality—was “highly racialized” in the United States, the researchers say. The largest drops in 2020 were among non-Hispanic American Indian/Alaska Native (4.48 years), Hispanic (3.72 years), non-Hispanic Black (3.20 years), and non-Hispanic Asian (1.83 years) populations. In 2021, the largest decreases were in the non-Hispanic White population. The reasons for the “surprising crossover” in outcomes are not entirely clear, the researchers say, and likely have multiple explanations.
However, the patterns, they note, “reflect a long history of systemic racism” and “inadequacies in how the pandemic was managed in the United States.” In a university news release, study coauthor Ryan Masters, PhD, said, “The US didn’t take COVID seriously to the extent that other countries did, and we paid a horrific price for it, with Black and brown people suffering the most.”
The researchers expected to see a decline among Native Americans, Masters said, because they often lack access to vaccines, quality health care, and transportation. But the magnitude of the drop in life expectancy was “shocking.” He added, “You just don’t see numbers like this in advanced countries in the modern day.”
Noting that the troubling downward trend in life expectancy had been on view even before the pandemic, Masters said, “This isn’t just a COVID problem. There are broader social and economic policies that placed the United States at a disadvantage long before this pandemic. The time to address them is long overdue.”