Life Expectancy Decreases in the U.S.

Life expectancy in the U.S. has decreased for the second consecutive year.

The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) revealed that life expectancy decreased in 2021 to 76.4 years — a drop from 77 years in 2020, according to mortality data released on December 22. The agency claims that this drop was primarily due to increases in COVID-19-related and drug overdose deaths.

As previously reported by The Dallas Express, the CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) announced a few months ago that the steepest drop in life expectancy in almost 100 years was seen between 2019 and 2021, with average life expectancies of 79 and 76 respectively.

The new data are featured in two new reports from the NCHS. One of these reports featured mortality rates while the other described numbers based on drug overdose rates.

According to the CDC, the recent figures claiming a drop in life expectancy from 77 to 76.4 years between 2020 and 2021 were the result of a climbing death rate.

While 3,464,231 total deaths occurred in the U.S. in 2021, this number is 80,502 more than the total recorded in 2020. The death rate for the entire U.S. population increased by 5.3% from 835.4 deaths per 100,000 population in 2020 to 879.7 in 2021.

The drug overdose report illustrated that overdose deaths have quintupled over the past two decades. The official number of drug overdose deaths in the United States in 2021 was 106,699, nearly 16% higher than the 91,799 deaths in 2020. Drug overdose deaths account for over a third of all accidental deaths in the United States.

The rate of drug overdose deaths involving synthetic opioids also increased by 22%, while the rate of deaths involving heroin declined by 32%.

A 28% increase in drug overdose deaths among adults aged 65 and over was also recorded from 2020 to 2021, a frightening trend previously reported on by The Dallas Express.

Illnesses such as pneumonia and the flu dropped off the list of the top 10 leading causes of death, while chronic liver disease newly appeared in ninth place. Otherwise, the top 10 list remains largely unchanged from 2020.

Heart disease remains the leading cause of death in the nation, followed by cancer and COVID-19. Both heart disease and cancer are pathogenetically connected to obesity — one of the largest health problems faced by Americans, and especially Texans, today.