Here’s how long the CDC expects some people in SC to live now that US life expectancy has dropped
The average life expectancy in South Carolina fell by two years in 2020, new federal health data shows.
The average South Carolina resident could expect to live until the age of 74.8 in 2020, down from 76.8 in 2019, a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report states. The report came just a week before the CDC released preliminary data that the overall average U.S. life expectancy had dropped in 2021 for the second year in a row — a decline fueled mainly by the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Wednesday report with 2021 data did not include a breakdown by states. What it did show was that the life expectancy drop for 2020 and 2021 was the sharpest two-year decline in nearly a century.
The other CDC data shows South Carolina had the 10th lowest average life expectancy among the states in 2020. Mississippi had the lowest average life expectancy at 71.9 years, while Hawaii had the highest at 80 years.
The CDC states that deaths from COVID-19 contributed to half of the decline in U.S. life expectancy the last two years. That was followed by unintentional injuries caused mainly by drug overdoses.
The COVID-19 pandemic causing a big drop in life expectancy wasn’t a huge surprise, given something similar happened after the infamous 1918 influenza pandemic, said Dr. Anthony Alberg, professor and chair of the department of epidemiology and biostatistics in the Arnold School of Public Health at the University of South Carolina.
“There was a huge decrease in life expectancy, a drop of about 10 years,” Alberg said. “There might be some evidence that the COVID vaccine helped, so the decrease in life expectancy was not nearly as big as for the influenza pandemic.”
Alberg noted that the hope would be that life expectancy would start to rise as COVID rates level out, much like what happened after the influenza pandemic ended.
“The coronavirus is not going away, but will be similar to the influenza and level off and people will get vaccinated to the latest strains,” Alberg said.
Alberg said apart from COVID waning, further increasing life expectancy in the U.S. would come in part by reducing common health problems like rates of obesity and type 2 diabetes.
“And the U.S. has the top level of health care technology and expertise in the world … but the best health care is not accessible to a lot of the population,” he said. “So, the closer we get to that level of access would help with life expectancy.”
Here is a list of the average life expectancy for all states and the District of Columbia, according to the CDC.
Hawaii: 80.7
Washington: 79.2
Minnesota: 79.1
California: 79
Massachusetts: 79
New Hampshire: 79
Vermont: 78.8
Oregon: 78.8
Utah: 78.6
Connecticut: 78.4
Idaho: 78.4
Colorado: 78.3
Rhode Island: 78.2
Maine: 77.8
New York: 77.7
Nebraska: 77.7
Wisconsin: 77.7
Virginia: 77.6
Florida: 77.5
New Jersey: 77.5
Iowa: 77.5
North Dakota: 76.9
Montana: 76.8
Maryland: 76.8
Pennsylvania: 76.8
Illinois: 76.8
Delaware: 76.7
South Dakota: 76.7
Alaska: 76.6
Texas: 76.5
Kansas: 76.4
Wyoming: 76.3
Arizona: 76.3
Nevada: 76.3
North Carolina: 76.1
Michigan: 76
Georgia: 75.6
Ohio: 75.3
District of Columbia: 75.3
Missouri: 75.1
Indiana: 75
South Carolina: 74.8
New Mexico: 74.5
Oklahoma: 74.1
Arkansas: 73.8
Tennessee: 73.8
Kentucky: 73.5
Alabama: 73.2
Louisiana: 73.1
West Virginia: 72.8
Mississippi: 71.9
