A Forgettable Year

The final mortality statistics for 2020 were recently released by the National Center for Health Statistics. They document what we already know—2020 was a very bad year...

• Life expectancy fell 1.8 years between 2019 and 2020, to 77.0 years. 
• The overall age-adjusted death rate climbed 16.8 percent, to 835.4 deaths per 100,000 population (up from 715.2 in 2019).
• The age-adjusted death rate increased for both males and females. 
• The age-adjusted death rate increased for Blacks, Hispanics, and non-Hispanic whites. 
• The death rate increased in every age group 15 and older between 2019 and 2020. The biggest increase in the death rate occurred in the 25-to-44 age group (up 24 percent).
• The age-adjusted death rate increased for 6 of the 10 leading causes of death: heart disease, unintentional injuries, stroke, Alzheimer's disease, diabetes, and influenza/pneumonia. 
• Between 2019 and 2020, the death rate increased the most for unintentional injuries. 
• Many unintentional injury deaths are drug overdoses. 
• The age-adjusted death rate from drug overdoses increased 31 percent between 2019 and 2020. 
• The death rate from drug overdoses increased in every age group between 2019 and 2020. 
• The drug overdose death rate is highest for people aged 25 to 44, which is also the age group whose death rate increased the most in 2020. 

It wasn't just Covid creating all the misery in 2020, but Covid may be why so many other things got worse. When all the numbers are in for 2021, it is likely to have been just as bad a year as 2020. Let's hope 2022 is better.

Source: National Center for Health Statistics, Mortality in the United States, 2020 and Drug Overdose Deaths in the United States, 1999–2020