U.S. Life Expectancy Declining; Latinos, Black Americans Being Widely Affected

A federal report has shown that U.S. life expectancy has declined in 2020 largely due to the deadly COVID pandemic.

Meanwhile, Latinos and Black Americans are that ones more severely affected as compared to white people, according to The New York Times report.

The latest drop in life U.S. life expectancy was the steepest in the country since World War II, with Latinos experiencing the greatest drop in life expectancy –three years– from 2019 to 2020.

Meanwhile, Black Americans saw a drop in their life expectancy for 2.9 years, while White Americans saw the smallest decline with 1.2 years.

U.S. Latinos have a longer life expectancy than non-Latino Blacks or white. However, they saw the largest decline in life expectancy during the pandemic.

Hispanic males took the biggest hit in the life expectancy, with a drop of 3.7 years, with COVID responsible for 90 percent of the decline among Latinos, according to an NPR report.

U.S. Life Expectancy Drop

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's National Center for Health Statistics said that life expectancy dropped from 78.8 years in 2019 to 77.3 years in 2020, according to a CNBC report.

Seventy-five percent of the decline in life expectancy can be factored into COVID deaths. More than 609,000 Americans have died due to the pandemic.

In addition, drug overdose deaths increased by 30 percent during the pandemic, which made up around one-third of unintentional injuries last year.

The report has also found that the life expectancy difference between the sexes was 5.7 years in 2020, which increased from 5.1 in 2019.

The federal report also noted that the life expectancy gap between white and Latino populations is a huge indicator of exacerbating health conditions and mortality outcomes.

The lead author of the report, Elizabeth Arias, said that Latinos were at greater risk of getting infected, with people working in the service sector not being able to telework.

Arias added that Latinos and Black Americans were getting infected and has a lot to do with their status in society.

Minorities Hit the Hardest by the Pandemic

Assistant professor of health law, policy, and management at the Boston University School of Public Health, Julia Raifman, said that there were large disparities in the proportion of people at risk of the pandemic from minority and low-income populations.

Raifman said that decades of the gap in education, housing, jobs, and stress levels are factors to an excess risk of chronic disease based on race, ethnicity, and income. These worsen the COVID crisis.

President of the American Academy of Family Physicians, Dr. Gary Leroy, said that the pandemic has highlighted the gap in health care for people of color and lower socioeconomic status, according to a WebMD report.

COVID hospitalizations in New York were 33 percent Black Americas. However, Black people in the area are just 18 percent of the state's population.

The CDC also saw that COVID death rates in New York are higher for Latinos as compared to whites.

This article is owned by Latin Post

Written by Mary Webber

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