The COVID pandemic reduced life expectancy globally by 2 years

Since the beginning of the pandemic, 494 million infections have been registered worldwide and 6.1 million fatalities have been reported. This increase in the number of deaths since March 2019, had a substantial impact on life expectancy globally.

COVID-19 reduced global life expectancy by about 2 years, according to a study by the Center for Demographic Research at the University of California (UCLA), in Los Angeles, USA, published in the specialized journal Population and Development Review.

Researchers indicated that this was the first global decline since the United Nations began to estimate this indicator in 1950.

According to the report, global life expectancy decreased by 0.92 years between 2019 and 2020, and 0.72 years between 2020 and 2021. “Since 1950, annual declines of that magnitude have been observed only rarely in some countries, such as Cambodia in the 1970s, Rwanda in the 1990s, and possibly some sub-Saharan African nations at the peak of the AIDS pandemic,” wrote Patrick Heuveline, professor of sociology and associate director of the Centre of California Population Research at UCLA.

The period of life expectancy at birth (life expectancy thereafter) is the most widely used indicator of mortality conditions. More broadly, this indicator is commonly taken as a marker of human progress, for example, in aggregated indices such as the UN Human Development Index.

The UN estimated that between 1950 and 2019, global life expectancy increased steadily, with an average increase of 0.39 years per year. From 45.7 years of life expectancy at birth in 1950 to 72.6 years in 2019 (United Nations 2019).

The smallest gain was during the AIDS pandemic, during which annual increases fell to 0.2 years. During the coronavirus pandemic, it was the first time that annual life expectancy declined for more than 2 years in at least 50 countries.

Heuveline and her team analyzed global and national estimates of changes in life expectancy using data on excess deaths compared to deaths attributed solely to COVID-19. While Heuveline referred primarily to the Global Mortality Data Set, it modified its approach to determining the number of excess deaths per country based on the availability and quality of data.

One of the obstacles to be overcome for these investigations is the collection of data at a global level. Data were not recorded reliably for all countries, and most high-quality vital statistics came from some 40 upper to upper middle income countries and therefore skewed the results. “While existing estimates are imperfect, they suggest that the number of excess deaths could be two to four times the number of deaths officially attributed to COVID-19,” Heuveline noted.

The analysis revealed that the increase in deaths during the pandemic had a substantial impact on global life expectancy, which had previously maintained uninterrupted growth from 1950 to 2019, according to Heuveline. The pandemic caused marked declines, of 0.92 years between 2019 and 2020 and an additional 0.72 years between 2020 and 2021. Estimates indicate that global life expectancy in 2021 fell below that of 2013.

“Most of this excess deaths probably occurred outside Europe and other high-income nations where the impact of the pandemic on mortality has been widely documented,” the author of the research added.

Research from the University of California estimated that the impact of the coronavirus pandemic may have been greater in Asian and African countries, specifically Egypt, India, Kazakhstan, Lebanon, South Africa, Tunisia and the Philippines, than in Western European countries such as Italy, Spain and the United Kingdom.

Countries with the greatest impact

The US experienced an annual change of just over 2 years of decline, while other countries experienced greater declines. According to the study, Peru experienced a decline of about 7.91 years. Meanwhile, Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, French Guiana, Mexico, Nicaragua and Paraguay experienced drops of around 4 to 6 years. The report does not detail exact data for Argentina.

Bosnia and Herzegovina and North Macedonia experienced an annual decline of just over 4 years compared to more than 3 years in Albania, Bulgaria, Montenegro and Poland, according to Heuveline. Egypt lost 2.3 years of life expectancy, India 2.6 years, Kazakhstan 3.2 years, Lebanon 3.4 years, the Philippines 3 years and South Africa 3.1 years.

Countries that did not achieve a 2-year decline in life expectancy included those in East Asia, Australia, New Zealand and most of Western Europe.

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