Largest US life expectancy drop since WW II

[iluvatar5150]

It doesn't make sense to me that "life expectancy" should vary on a year-to-year basis at the same time that certain events happen. That's like saying that life expectancy should have dropped during WWII...but it did not. WWII was a known outlier event, as Covid is.

• United States: life expectancy 1860-2020 | Statista

Really? Because variability coinciding with significant shocks makes perfect sense to me, and I'm surprised that WW2 didn't cause a dip (though it looks like WW1 did). If I may hazard a guess as to why COVID had a more visible impact on these numbers than WW2:

Both COVID and WW2 killed roughly the same percentage of the US population. Wikipedia puts that figure at 0.39% for WW2. According to worldometer's death toll, it's about 0.35% for COVID. WW2 deaths were spread out a bit more: it was nearly 3 years between Pearl Harbor and VJ Day whereas most COVID deaths were concentrated within the 2 years between Mar 2020 and Mar 2022. Concentrating early deaths is going to have a bigger impact on total life expectancy. TBH, I kind of doubt that this difference is a big factor, but it's something.

I suspect the bigger factor is what was happening with old people. I can't find good data before 1950, but if you look at what was happening from 1950 to about 2010, the life expectancy at age 65 was growing by about 6-12 months every decade, and plateauing by the 2010's. In the early 1940's, there were far more old people at home living longer than there were young people dying overseas - I suspect their numbers were large enough to swamp whatever effect the war would've had on life expectancy. By the time COVID hit, that was no longer the case.

 

[keith99]

Really? Because variability coinciding with significant shocks makes perfect sense to me, and I'm surprised that WW2 didn't cause a dip (though it looks like WW1 did). If I may hazard a guess as to why COVID had a more visible impact on these numbers than WW2:

Both COVID and WW2 killed roughly the same percentage of the US population. Wikipedia puts that figure at 0.39% for WW2. According to worldometer's death toll, it's about 0.35% for COVID. WW2 deaths were spread out a bit more: it was nearly 3 years between Pearl Harbor and VJ Day whereas most COVID deaths were concentrated within the 2 years between Mar 2020 and Mar 2022. Concentrating early deaths is going to have a bigger impact on total life expectancy. TBH, I kind of doubt that this difference is a big factor, but it's something.

I suspect the bigger factor is what was happening with old people. I can't find good data before 1950, but if you look at what was happening from 1950 to about 2010, the life expectancy at age 65 was growing by about 6-12 months every decade, and plateauing by the 2010's. In the early 1940's, there were far more old people at home living longer than there were young people dying overseas - I suspect their numbers were large enough to swamp whatever effect the war would've had on life expectancy. By the time COVID hit, that was no longer the case.

Why would one expect a dip in life expectancy of those born in 1940-1944 in the United States? In Europe or Asia sure. But the war never came to the United States. There was no blitz of New York like there was of London.

With Covid however there is an ongoing risk. People will continue to die from it, just as they die from Influenza. However what may have a larger impact on life expectancy if the expectation of how a certain portion of the population will react to the next similar situation. We can expect a significant portion of the population to refuse to be vaccinated and to refuse to take other precautions and then go to quack cures.

BTW WW I was not the cause of the dip, it was the Influenza epidemic and people are still catching the flu and dying.

 

[iluvatar5150]

Why would one expect a dip in life expectancy of those born in 1940-1944 in the United States? In Europe or Asia sure. But the war never came to the United States. There was no blitz of New York like there was of London.

I could be wrong, but the way I understand life expectancy from birth measures is that they basically take a snapshot of everybody at that moment, so it would include the babies born in 1944 and also the 18yo's getting sent to France.

BTW WW I was not the cause of the dip, it was the Influenza epidemic and people are still catching the flu and dying.

ah okay, that makes more sense. I was thinking the flu was 1912 for some reason.

 

[Pommer]

I could be wrong, but the way I understand life expectancy from birth measures is that they basically take a snapshot of everybody at that moment, so it would include the babies born in 1944 and also the 18yo's getting sent to France.


ah okay, that makes more sense. I was thinking the flu was 1912 for some reason.

1912 was the Titanic.

 

[Occams Barber]

This MSNBC article

U.S. life expectancy rose in 2022, but not enough to erase the pandemic's toll (nbcnews.com)

talks about US life expectancy. While it marginally increased following Covid, it is way behind economically comparable countries:

​

Prior to the pandemic, life expectancy in the U.S. had largely plateaued, while in other countries it continued to climb.​

“The U.S. had already been doing quite poorly compared to other countries,” Woolf said. “The gap between the U.S. and other countries is now enormous.”​

For comparison this OECD data covers 2022 life expectancy for 18 relatively wealthy countries. The US result is the lonely blue dot at the bottom left.

Health status - Life expectancy at birth - OECD Data

OB