Gender disparity, life expectancy gap, lifespan gap, US men, US women, COVID-19, opioids, mortality The gender difference in lifespan in the U.S. has widened to 6 years since 2010 due to factors such as the COVID-19 pandemic, unintentional injuries, poisonings- mostly opioid overdose, accidents, and suicide, reveals a new study. The research was led by UC San Francisco and Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and published in JAMA Internal Medicine (1✔ ✔Trusted Source
Widening Gender Gap in Life Expectancy in the US, 2010-2021
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US Gender Gap in Life Expectancy Widens to Six Years
We’ve known for more than a century that women outlive men. “There’s been a lot of research into the decline in life expectancy in recent years, but no one has systematically analyzed why the gap between men and women has been widening since 2010,” said the paper’s first author, Brandon Yan, MD, MPH, a UCSF internal medicine resident physician and research collaborator at Harvard Chan School.‘The gender disparity in life expectancy increased to 5.8 years in 2021 from 4.8 years in 2010, when the gap was at its smallest in recent history. #gendergap #lifeexpectancy #covid_19’
Life expectancy in the U.S. dropped in 2021 to 76.1 year, falling from 78.8 years in 2019 and 77 years in 2020.The shortening lifespan of Americans has been attributed in part to so-called “deaths of despair.” The term refers to the increase in deaths from such causes as suicide, drug use disorders, and alcoholic liver disease, which are often connected with economic hardship, depression, and stress.
“While rates of death from drug overdose and homicide have climbed for both men and women, it is clear that men constitute an increasingly disproportionate share of these deaths,” Yan said.
’Deaths of Despair’- COVID-19’s Impact on Cutting Lifespan in US Men
Using data from the National Center for Health Statistics, Yan and fellow researchers from around the country identified the causes of death that were lowering life expectancy the most. Then they estimated the effects on men and women to see how much different causes were contributing to the gap.Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, the largest contributors were unintentional injuries, diabetes, suicide, homicide and heart disease.
But during the pandemic, men were more likely to die of the virus. That was likely due to a number of reasons, including differences in health behaviors, as well as social factors, such as the risk of exposure at work, reluctance to seek medical care, incarceration and housing instability. Chronic metabolic disorders, mental illness and gun violence also contributed.
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“We have brought insights to a worrisome trend,” Yan said. “Future research ought to help focus public health interventions towards helping reverse this decline in life expectancy.”
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“We need to track these trends closely as the pandemic recedes,” Koh said. “And we must make significant investments in prevention and care to ensure that this widening disparity, among many others, do not become entrenched.”
Reference:
- Widening Gender Gap in Life Expectancy in the US, 2010-2021 - (https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/article-abstract/2811338)
Source-Eurekalert