2020: the worst year since WWII
And it’s not just us saying it. Average US life expectancy fell by 1.8 years from 2019 to 2020, per a new CDC report published Tuesday, reaching its lowest level in nearly two decades (77.0 years).
🦠💊 Driving the trend… The pandemic and “unintentional injuries,” a category that covers overdose deaths, were the two biggest factors per the CDC. Covid was reported as causing ~375,000 US deaths in 2020, while roughly 92,000 Americans died of a drug overdose.
🔢 Some more numbers: All 50 states plus D.C. saw average life expectancy decrease in 2020. Collectively, it represents the biggest annual decline since World War II.
- New York suffered the largest yearly decline of any state, at minus 3.0 years.
- Washington, D.C. (-2.7), Louisiana (-2.6), New Jersey (-2.6) and Arizona (-2.5) rounded out the top five.
📊 Highs and lows… It turns out Peter Bretter from Forgetting Sarah Marshall had the right idea. Hawaii had the highest life expectancy overall at 80.7 years, while Mississippi had the lowest at 71.9 years. And it also turns out that “girls rule, boys drool” has a bit of accuracy.
American women had a higher life expectancy than men, both overall (79.9 years vs. 74.2 years) and across every single state plus D.C.
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