Life expectancy is rising in the US, approaching pre-pandemic levels

In the United States alone, there were nearly 417,000 deaths from COVID-19 in 2021. A year after that, in 2022, there were around 187,000, and a year after that, in 2023, there were about 50,000.

The COVID-19 pandemic has triggered a massive increase in mortality in the US, leading to a reduction in life expectancy. But today, life expectancy is recovering, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). After falling to 76.4 years in 2021, it increased by 1.1 years in 2022 (CDC reported in March) and up to 0.9 years in 2023 (CDC reported in December), returning to near pre-pandemic levels.

The back-to-back recoveries in 2022 and 2023 are due to declines in age-adjusted death rates for nearly all leading causes of death, from heart disease to COVID-19. The 2023 comeback also coincides with a declining rate of drug-related deaths, according to another recent report by the CDC, indicating a downward trend in fatal overdoses.

Read more: People have altered their life expectancy in extraordinary ways

Life expectancy in the US

According to the CDC, life expectancy was 78.4 years in 2023, up from 77.5 years in 2022 and 76.4 years in 2021. Listed as life expectancy at birth, each of these estimates is an assessment of the average number of years a child was born. in 2023, 2022 or 2021 could expect to live based on the death rates of those years.

Consistently calculated by the CDC, these life expectancies are a valuable measure of assessing the overall death rate of a population, although it is important to note that they represent the overall death rate in a given year (and therefore not may take into account future medical advances or decline).

In 2023, approximately 3,091,000 people died in the US, while a total of approximately 3,280,000 and 3,464,000 died in 2022 and 2021. Although life expectancy derived from these deaths is still shy of pre- pandemic from the peak years of 78 and earlier. 78.9 years), life expectancy it is is heading toward pre-pandemic levels and is improving significantly due to consecutive declines in death rates among the top 10 leading causes.

Main causes of death

In all three years, the top 10 causes of death were heart disease, cancer, unintentional injuries, stroke, chronic lower respiratory disease, Alzheimer’s disease, diabetes, kidney disease, chronic liver disease and cirrhosis, and COVID- 19. Between 2021 and 2022, death rates for all 10 fell, except for cancer, and between 2022 and 2023, they fell again, except for kidney disease.

In all three years – 2021, 2022 and 2023 – the leading cause of death was heart disease. In 2021, heart disease caused 173.8 deaths per 100,000 people in the US, adjusted for population age, while in 2022 and 2023, it caused 167.2 and 162.1 deaths, respectively. This represents a 3.8% decrease in age-adjusted heart disease death rates between 2021 and 2022 and another 3.1% decrease between 2022 and 2023.

Cancer followed in all three years, then unintentional injury in 2022 and 2023. Between 2021 and 2022, age-adjusted cancer death rates fell by 2.9%, while unintentional injury-adjusted death rates by age they decreased by 1.1%. And while cancer death rates remained about the same between 2022 and 2023, accidental injury death rates fell by another 2.7 percent.

According to the CDC, some of the most significant changes occurred with COVID-19 across all three years, with an age-adjusted death rate that dropped 57.3 percent between 2021 and 2022 and a further 73.3 % between 2022 and 2023. In 2021, COVID-19 caused 104.1 deaths per 100,000 people in the US, while in 2022 and 2023, it caused 44.5 and 11.9, falling from the third leading cause of death to fourth in 2022 and tenth in 2023.

Read more: Why do some people live so long?

The decline of drugs

While the increase in life expectancy is largely due to decreases in the death rates of the leading causes of death, there are also decreases in other death rates. According to the CDC, drug overdose deaths — which are not included in the March or December mortality reports as the leading cause of death in the U.S. — declined between 2022 and 2023, with the age-adjusted death rate falling 4.0 percent , from 32.6 per 100,000 people to 31.3. This is the first drop in age-adjusted overdose death rates since 2018, when overdoses caused 20.7 deaths per 100,000 people.

It’s a promising trend after years of rising overdose deaths, and perhaps a positive sign for future declines.

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Sam Walters is a journalist who covers archaeology, paleontology, ecology and evolution for Discover, along with a variety of other topics. Before joining the Discover team as an assistant editor in 2022, Sam studied journalism at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois.