Global life expectancy decreased between 2019 to 2021 due to deaths from the Covid-19 pandemic, according to the results of a new study.
The research published in The Lancet featured updates from the Global Burden of Disease Study and showed that global average life expectancy declined by 1.6 years between 2019 and 2021. The study began in the 1990s and this is the first time that a decline in life expectancy has been documented as opposed to a steady overall rise.
“For adults worldwide, the Covid-19 pandemic has had a more profound impact than any event seen in half a century, including conflicts and natural disasters,” says co-first author Dr. Austin E. Schumacher, Acting Assistant Professor of Health Metrics Sciences at the University of Washington and one of the authors of the study.
The researchers estimated that 15.9 million people died from Covid-19 in 2020 and 2021 worldwide who would have been alive if it were not for the pandemic. 5.9 million of these were recorded in 2020 and just under 10 million in 2021.
However, the pandemic did not affect mortality equally all over the globe. Eighty countries had mortality rates in excess of 150 per 100,000 people, per year during one or more years of the pandemic, with the highest rates being Peru in 2020 (413 people per 100,000) and Bulgaria in 2021 (697.5 people per 100,000).
“Life expectancy declined in 84% of countries and territories during this pandemic, demonstrating the devastating potential impacts of novel pathogens,” said Schumacher.
There was however, some good news from the report. There were a few countries where life expectancy increased during the early years of the pandemic from 2019-2021, including Australia, New Zealand and China. All of these countries had lower numbers of Covid-19 infections than many other parts of the world during that time, although the report did not suggest this as a cause.
Additionally, child mortality continued to decrease even during the pandemic, with half a million fewer deaths in children under five years old in 2021 compared to 2019.
The study also looked at trends in population numbers around the world. Since 2021, 56 countries have had their populations shrink, but population growth has continued to rise in lots of lower-income countries. People in many countries around the world are also getting older on average. In the two decades leading up to 2021, the number of people over 65 grew more rapidly than the number of individuals under age 15 in 188 countries and territories all over the world.
“Slowing population growth and aging populations, along with the concentration of future population growth shifting to poorer locations with worse health outcomes, will bring about unprecedented social, economic, and political challenges, such as labor shortages in areas where younger populations are shrinking and resource scarcity in places where population size continues to expand rapidly. These issues will require significant policy forethought to address in the affected regions” added Schumacher.
