Long Term Life Expectancy Research Skewed by COVID-19 Pandemic, but Researchers Still Found an Increase Since 1990

People around the world are living longer now than they were just 30 years ago. Researchers quantify this improvement despite the complications from the COVID-19 pandemic.

life expectancy
Global life expectancy has made incredible strides in the last three decades despite setbacks from the COVID-19 pandemic.

Heart disease remains the leading cause of death worldwide, but in 2020 COVID-19 was right on its heels causing several million deaths since. Naturally, the pandemic caused a significant decrease in life expectancy across the globe, but the strides made in other leading killers has offset this loss. This latest research found that despite COVID, global life expectancy has increased by 6.2 years since 1990.

The top causes of death offset by COVID-19

There have been several changes to the list of top killers over the years, with a net decrease in deaths over the years. In 1990, diarrheal diseases were the fifth leading cause of death worldwide. By 2019, this dropped to 10th on the list, which scientists partially attribute the higher life expectancy to.

Tuberculosis also dropped over the years, going from number 7 in 1990 to 14th by 2019. Even top causes of death in 2019 were less lethal, killing less people each year.

Prior to 2020, the top three leading causes of death were heart disease, stroke, and COPD. However, in 2020 COVID-19 shot to the top of the list, replacing stroke at the second top killer.

Global life expectancy would be higher if not for COVID

This research is the first to compare gains in life expectancy prior to the pandemic to the losses caused by the pandemic. The top improver of life expectancy was found to be enteric infections, improving life expectancy by 1.1 years.

Enteric infections are caused by micro-organisms that cause intestinal illnesses (diarrhea). Examples are rotavirus, salmonella, E. coli, and vibrio cholerae.

Decreases in lower respiratory infections, stroke, heart disease, and other communicable diseases increased life expectancy by 2.9 years combined. These are huge strides to increase life expectancy since 1990.

COVID pandemic
The COVID-19 pandemic caused over seven million deaths worldwide, decreasing life expectancy.

COVID threw a wrench into these longer life plans in 2020. 2019-2021, COVID-19 and other related pandemic complications decreased global life expectancy by 2.2 years.

This had a disproportionate effect in Latin America, Africa, the Middle East, and Europe and Central Asia. COVID and pandemic complications decreased life expectancy in Latin America and the Caribbean by 4.3 years, severely hindering their growth in longer lives.

People are still living longer despite COVID

Nevertheless, the world still has seen an increase in life expectancy by 6.2 years since 1990. Southeast Asia, East Asia, and Oceana saw the greatest increase, a whopping 8.3 years longer than 1990. The researchers attribute this to their adept handling of the pandemic. COVID only decreased their life expectancy by less than half a year while the region saw strides in each of the other top killers.

Central and Eastern Europe and Central Asia have seen the least increase in life expectancy over the years. They have only gained 2.1 years in the last three decades. While COVID was a large contributor to this, they did not make the same improvements in reducing the effect of other killers in recent years.

News reference:

Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation. "Global burden of 288 causes of death and life expectancy decomposition in 204 countries and territories and 811 subnational locations, 1990–2021: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2021" https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(24)00367-2/fulltext#gr5