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Researchers from the Leverhulme Centre for Demographic Science, Australian National University and the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, analysed cause-of-death data for 24 countries before and during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The researchers found that life expectancy declined in 2020 for all but four of the 24 included countries, with the US experiencing the largest decline of 2.1 years for males. In 2021, most countries experienced further declines in life expectancy, with females in Bulgaria and males in Latvia experiencing the largest losses of over two years.
Lead author Antonino Polizzi, DPhil student at the Leverhulme Centre for Demographic Science, said, ‘This study explores the direct and indirect effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on mortality across the world and highlights that life expectancy losses had still not returned to pre-pandemic levels in several countries by 2022.’
The study found that, in addition to COVID-19 deaths, increased mortality attributed to cardiovascular disease was a major contributor to life expectancy losses during the first two years of the pandemic, particularly in Russia and Eastern Europe. In 2020, cardiovascular disease-related losses were greatest in Russia which experienced losses of 5.3 months. Bulgaria experienced cardiovascular disease-related losses of 5.5 months in 2021. The authors suggest that this could have been due to lapses in prevention or treatment of cardiovascular disease, or undercounted COVID-19 deaths.
Co-author Professor Jennifer Dowd, Deputy Director of the Leverhulme Centre for Demographic Science and Oxford Population Health’s Demographic Science Unit, said, ‘The pandemic reversed years of progress in reducing cardiovascular deaths in several countries, which constituted one of the largest sources of gains in life expectancy over the period 2015-2019. These losses continued through 2022.’
Read the full story on the Leverhulme Centre for Demographic Science website.