Impact of COVID-19 on excess mortality, life expectancy, and years of life lost in the United States

• Published in: PloS one Vol. 16; no. 9; p. e0256835
• Main Authors: Chan, Eunice Y. S, Cheng, Davy, Martin, Janet
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: San Francisco Public Library of Science 01-09-2021; Public Library of Science (PLoS)
• Subjects: Age groups; Biology and Life Sciences; Coronaviruses; COVID-19; Dentistry; Disease control; Estimates; Evaluation; Fatalities; Heterogeneity; Life expectancy; Life span; Medicine; Medicine and Health Sciences; Mortality; Pandemics; People and places; Population; Reversion; United States; Ontario Canada; Canada; United States > US
• ISSN: 1932-6203; 1932-6203
• DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0256835

This paper quantifies the net impact (direct and indirect effects) of the pandemic on the United States population in 2020 using three metrics: excess deaths, life expectancy, and total years of life lost. The findings indicate there were 375,235 excess deaths, with 83% attributable to direct, and 17% attributable to indirect effects of COVID-19. The decrease in life expectancy was 1.67 years, translating to a reversion of 14 years in historical life expectancy gains. Total years of life lost in 2020 was 7,362,555 across the USA (73% directly attributable, 27% indirectly attributable to COVID-19), with considerable heterogeneity at the individual state level.