Leonard Davis School of Gerontology, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA 90089;
Office of Population Research, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544.
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2021 Feb 2;118(5). doi: 10.1073/pnas.2014746118.
COVID-19 has resulted in a staggering death toll in the United States: over 215,000 by mid-October 2020, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Black and Latino Americans have experienced a disproportionate burden of COVID-19 morbidity and mortality, reflecting persistent structural inequalities that increase risk of exposure to COVID-19 and mortality risk for those infected. We estimate life expectancy at birth and at age 65 y for 2020, for the total US population and by race and ethnicity, using four scenarios of deaths-one in which the COVID-19 pandemic had not occurred and three including COVID-19 mortality projections produced by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation. Our medium estimate indicates a reduction in US life expectancy at birth of 1.13 y to 77.48 y, lower than any year since 2003. We also project a 0.87-y reduction in life expectancy at age 65 y. The Black and Latino populations are estimated to experience declines in life expectancy at birth of 2.10 and 3.05 y, respectively, both of which are several times the 0.68-y reduction for Whites. These projections imply an increase of nearly 40% in the Black-White life expectancy gap, from 3.6 y to over 5 y, thereby eliminating progress made in reducing this differential since 2006. Latinos, who have consistently experienced lower mortality than Whites (a phenomenon known as the Latino or Hispanic paradox), would see their more than 3-y survival advantage reduced to less than 1 y.
截至 2020 年 10 月中旬，据美国疾病控制与预防中心称，新冠疫情已导致美国逾 21.5 万人死亡。黑人和拉丁裔美国人在新冠疫情的发病率和死亡率方面承受了不成比例的负担，这反映出持续存在的结构性不平等，增加了接触新冠病毒的风险，并增加了感染者的死亡风险。我们使用四种死亡情景估计了 2020 年美国全人群以及按种族和族裔划分的出生时和 65 岁时的预期寿命，其中一种情景假设新冠大流行未发生，另外三种情景包含了健康指标与评估研究所（Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation）制作的新冠死亡率预测。我们的中位数估计显示，美国出生时预期寿命将减少 1.13 年，至 77.48 年，这一数字低于 2003 年以来的任何一年。我们还预测，65 岁时的预期寿命将减少 0.87 年。黑人和拉丁裔人口的出生时预期寿命预计分别减少 2.10 年和 3.05 年，均为白人预期寿命减少 0.68 年的数倍。这些预测意味着，黑人和白人之间的预期寿命差距将增加近 40%，从 3.6 年增加到 5 年以上，从而消除了自 2006 年以来在缩小这一差异方面取得的进展。拉丁裔的死亡率一直低于白人（这一现象被称为拉丁裔或西班牙裔悖论），他们超过 3 年的生存优势将减少到不到 1 年。
