Asian, Hispanic and Black Californians saw bigger drops in life expectancy than whites during COVID

This study demonstrates that the reduction in life expectancy continued from 2020 into 2021, despite the availability of vaccines for much of 2021.Life expectancy is not the average life span of individuals in a society but a hypothetical measure based solely on the mortality rates observed in a given year. It estimates how long a cohort of newborns could expect to live if it experienced the mortality rates of that specific year throughout their entire lifetimes. In the current study, life expectancy captures how much life was lost collectively within a population during the pandemic years, and it illustrates the dramatic differences in the pandemic ’s impact across communities of different socioeconomic status.Hispanic populations in California lost 5.7 years of life expectancy between 2019 and 2021, while Black populations lost 3.8 years, Asian populations lost 3.0 years and white populations lost 1.9 years, according to the study. During this time, income also became more tightly correlated with life expectancy than it had been previously.Note: Race and ethnicity information is generally obtained from an “informant” (close relative, friend, or acquaintance with the deceased). That information is categorized into mutually exclusive categories. In this analysis, all individuals who were identified as Hispanic ethnicity (by the informant) were included in the Hispanic category. Individuals who were categorized as multiracial were excluded from this analysis.“We’ve h...
Source: UCLA Newsroom: Health Sciences - Category: Universities & Medical Training Source Type: news