COVID sent last year's U.S. death rate soaring, especially among people of color
A new Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report says that the death rate in the U.S. went up dramatically in 2020 compared to the previous year, prompting the biggest drop in life expectancy seen in decades.
Many of those deaths were caused directly or indirectly by COVID-19 — but the U.S. was lagging behind other developed countries in health outcomes long before the pandemic hit.
Fast facts
- The overall mortality rate of the U.S. went up by nearly 17% last year.
- That corresponds to a drop in life expectancy of 1.8 years.
- All age groups 15 and older saw a rise in deaths last year.
- Ten percent of all deaths were due to COVID-19, making it the third largest cause of death in the country.
- There was also a rise in deaths from other causes, like heart disease, stroke and unintentional injuries like drug overdoses.
- The rise in deaths were significantly higher for Hispanic and Black populations compared to white people.
- The drop in U.S. life expectancy is the largest single-year decrease in more than 75 years.
Expert analysis
Bob Anderson, chief of the CDC's mortality statistics branch, says that while a large number of deaths are "directly attributable" to COVID-19, many are also indirectly related.
For example, he notes that the virus can cause circulatory complications and therefore could be behind some of the deaths from things like strokes. And he says drug overdose deaths had started to climb at the end of 2019, with the increase getting steeper the following year. Anderson says the pandemic likely had an impact, even if it wasn't the sole driver of that climb.
José Manuel Aburto, a demographer at the University of Oxford, found that among 29 developed countries, American males experienced the biggest drop in life expectancy last year.
"Given the impact of the pandemic specifically in the U.S., it is not surprising that we see this drop in life expectancy," he said. "What I do find very surprising is the magnitude of the loss."
Dr. Steven Woolf, the director emeritus of the Center on Society and Health at Virginia Commonwealth University, notes that the U.S. has historically had worse health outcomes than other rich countries, in large part because of socioeconomic disparities and lack of access to care.
Those factors have been exacerbated by the pandemic, and reflected in its disproportionate impact on underprivileged communities, he explains.
Woolf notes that while this is a longer-term problem to fix, the pandemic is still raging. In the short term, he says, we can bring down deaths by following public health guidelines.
A version of this story originally appeared in the Morning Edition live blog.
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Transcript
MELISSA BLOCK, HOST:
The CDC is reporting new data on life expectancy in the U.S. It finds that the death rate in the country went up dramatically in 2020 compared to the year before, primarily because of the COVID pandemic. As NPR's Rhitu Chatterjee reports, that led to the biggest drop in life expectancy seen in decades.
RHITU CHATTERJEE, BYLINE: The overall mortality rate in the United States went up by nearly 17% last year.
BOB ANDERSON: And that corresponded to a drop in life expectancy of 1.8 years.
CHATTERJEE: Bob Anderson is the chief of the mortality statistics branch at the CDC. He says all age groups 15 and up saw a rise in deaths last year.
ANDERSON: Obviously, we have a large number of deaths that are directly attributable to COVID.
CHATTERJEE: Ten percent of all deaths were due to COVID-19, making it the third-largest cause of death in the country. But there were rises in deaths from other causes, too, like heart disease and stroke.
ANDERSON: We do know that COVID can cause circulatory complications, and so some of these might actually be COVID related.
CHATTERJEE: And some, he says, were likely because people had trouble accessing care because of the pandemic. The report also documents a big jump in deaths from unintentional injuries, mostly drug overdose deaths, which had already started to climb up by the end of 2019.
ANDERSON: As the pandemic arose, the increases got steeper, so the pandemic certainly, I think, had an impact, even though it's not the sole driver of what's going on.
JOSE MANUEL ABURTO: Given the impact of the pandemic, specifically in the U.S., it is not surprising that we see this drop in life expectancy.
CHATTERJEE: Jose Manuel Aburto is a demographer at the University of Oxford.
ABURTO: What I do find very surprising is the magnitude of the loss.
CHATTERJEE: The report finds that the drop in life expectancy in the U.S. is the largest single-year decrease in more than 75 years. And Aburto and his colleagues' research shows that among 29 developed countries, American males experienced the biggest drop in life expectancy last year. Dr. Steven Woolf is director emeritus at the Center of Society and Health at Virginia Commonwealth University. He says even before the pandemic, the U.S. was already lagging behind other rich countries in health outcomes.
STEVEN WOOLF: So there's a complex set of reasons why, in general, the health of Americans is inferior to people in other countries, and all of those issues rolled into the pandemic.
CHATTERJEE: Lack of access to care and socioeconomic disparities are big factors, he says, and only exacerbated by the pandemic, causing disproportionate impacts on underprivileged communities - something that's documented in the new CDC report.
WOOLF: The increase in mortality was twice as high for the Black population and three times as high for the Hispanic population. This is the product of our society and the barriers it places to access to health and good opportunity.
CHATTERJEE: And those barriers will need to be addressed, he says, for the U.S. to see a drop in death rates in the long run, but with the pandemic still raging, we can bring down deaths in the short term by following public health guidelines. Rhitu Chatterjee, NPR News.
(SOUNDBITE OF GUILTY GHOSTS' "WOES") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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