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. 2021 Sep 1;16(9):e0256835.
doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0256835. eCollection 2021.

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

Eunice Y S Chan  1 , Davy Cheng  1 , Janet Martin  1   2
Affiliations

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

Eunice Y S Chan et al. PLoS One. .

Abstract

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.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Figures

Fig 1
Fig 1. Excess mortality attributable to direct vs indirect effects of COVID-19 in 2020.
Error bars indicate the lower and upper bounds of the plausible range of excess mortality.
Fig 2
Fig 2. Number of years lost in life expectancy due to the direct and indirect effects of COVID-19 on the female, male, and total population of the United States in 2020.
Error bars are the uncertainty of the overall effects of COVID-19 for each respective sex.
Fig 3
Fig 3. Years of life lost attributed to the overall effects of COVID-19 for the female population of the United States in 2020.
Error bars are the uncertainty of how each effect impacted the YLL for each age group.
Fig 4
Fig 4. Years of life lost attributed to the overall effects of COVID-19 for the male population of the United States in 2020.
Error bars are the uncertainty of how each effect impacted the YLL for each age group.
Fig 5
Fig 5. Comparison of excess mortality results attributable to COVID-19 pandemic in the United States in 2020 across different studies.
Error bars are the uncertainty of how each effect impacted the excess mortality for each population.
Fig 6
Fig 6. Comparison of life expectancy decrease attributable to COVID-19 pandemic in the United States in 2020 across different studies.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

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