Reductions in US life expectancy during the COVID-19 pandemic by race and ethnicity: Is 2021 a repetition of 2020?

  1. Theresa Andrasfay
  2. Noreen Goldman

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Abstract

COVID-19 had a huge mortality impact in the US in 2020 and accounted for most of the overall reduction in 2020 life expectancy at birth. There were also extensive racial/ethnic disparities in the mortality impact of COVID-19 in 2020, with the Black and Latino populations experiencing reductions in life expectancy at birth over twice as large as that of the White population. Despite continued vulnerability of these populations, the hope was that widespread distribution of effective vaccines would mitigate the overall mortality impact and reduce racial/ethnic disparities in 2021. In this study, we quantify the mortality impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on 2021 US period life expectancy by race and ethnicity and compare these impacts to those estimated for 2020. Our estimates indicate that racial/ethnic disparities have persisted, and that the US population experienced a decline in life expectancy at birth in 2021 of 2.2 years from 2019, 0.6 years more than estimated for 2020. The corresponding reductions estimated for the Black and Latino populations are slightly below twice that for Whites, suggesting smaller disparities than those in 2020. However, all groups experienced additional reductions in life expectancy at birth relative to 2020, and this apparent narrowing of disparities is primarily the result of Whites experiencing proportionately greater increases in mortality in 2021 compared with the corresponding increases in mortality for the Black and Latino populations in 2021. Estimated declines in life expectancy at age 65 increased slightly for Whites between 2020 and 2021 but decreased for both the Black and Latino populations, resulting in the same overall reduction (0.8 years) estimated for 2020 and 2021.

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  1. Version published to 10.1371/journal.pone.0272973
  2. Version published to 10.1101/2021.10.17.21265117v7 on medRxiv
  3. Version published to 10.1101/2021.10.17.21265117v6 on medRxiv
  4. Version published to 10.1101/2021.10.17.21265117v5 on medRxiv
  5. Version published to 10.1101/2021.10.17.21265117v4 on medRxiv
  6. Version published to 10.1101/2021.10.17.21265117v3 on medRxiv
  7. ScreenIT

    SciScore for 10.1101/2021.10.17.21265117: (What is this?)

    Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.

    Table 1: Rigor

    Ethicsnot detected.
    Sex as a biological variablenot detected.
    Randomizationnot detected.
    Blindingnot detected.
    Power Analysisnot detected.

    Table 2: Resources

    Experimental Models: Organisms/Strains
    SentencesResources
    Life tables for 2018 for the total US population and for the non-Latino White, non-Latino Black, and Latino populations are obtained from the NVSS (Arias & Xu, 2020).
    non-Latino White
    suggested: None

    Results from OddPub: We did not detect open data. We also did not detect open code. Researchers are encouraged to share open data when possible (see Nature blog).

    Results from LimitationRecognizer: We detected the following sentences addressing limitations in the study:
    This analysis provides a preliminary set of estimates of the impact of COVID-19 on life expectancy in 2021 and its continued disparate impact on the Black and Latino populations, but it is subject to several limitations. As previously mentioned, the cause-deleted life table methodology does not account for excess mortality from causes other than COVID-19. Our partial-year estimates for 2021 life expectancy rely on NCHS provisional COVID-19 deaths, which are subject to reporting and processing delays, and so they are likely to be an underestimate of the impact of COVID-19 on life expectancy thus far in 2021. Our projected estimates for the full 2021 year rely on projected deaths for the remaining months of 2021. There is still much uncertainty regarding COVID-19 mortality in the final months of 2021, which will depend on further vaccine uptake, waning vaccine efficacy, and whether the US experiences another winter surge in cases, among other factors. We will continue to update these estimates as more data become available and as projections are updated.

    Results from TrialIdentifier: No clinical trial numbers were referenced.

    Results from Barzooka: We did not find any issues relating to the usage of bar graphs.

    Results from JetFighter: We did not find any issues relating to colormaps.

    Results from rtransparent:
    • Thank you for including a conflict of interest statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
    • Thank you for including a funding statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
    • No protocol registration statement was detected.

    Results from scite Reference Check: We found no unreliable references.

    About SciScore

    SciScore is an automated tool that is designed to assist expert reviewers by finding and presenting formulaic information scattered throughout a paper in a standard, easy to digest format. SciScore checks for the presence and correctness of RRIDs (research resource identifiers), and for rigor criteria such as sex and investigator blinding. For details on the theoretical underpinning of rigor criteria and the tools shown here, including references cited, please follow this link.

  8. Version published to 10.1101/2021.10.17.21265117v2 on medRxiv
  9. Version published to 10.1101/2021.10.17.21265117v1 on medRxiv