A comprehensive study in The Lancet details the COVID-19 pandemic’s severe impact on global life expectancy and mortality, highlighting continued reductions in child mortality and evolving population trends with significant future implications. Credit: SciTechDaily.compandemic both within nations and internationally. Regions including Mexico City, Peru, and Bolivia experienced some of the most significant reductions in life expectancy from 2019 to 2021.
“For adults worldwide, the COVID-19 pandemic has had a more profound impact than any event seen in half a century, including conflicts and natural disasters,” says co-first author Dr. Austin E. Schumacher, Acting Assistant Professor of Health Metrics Sciences at the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the. “Life expectancy declined in 84% of countries and territories during this pandemic, demonstrating the devastating potential impacts of novel pathogens.
GBD 2021 analyzes past and current demographic trends at global, regional, national, and subnational levels. The study provides globally comparable measures of excess mortality and is one of the first studies to fully evaluate demographic trends in the context of the first two years of the COVID-19 pandemic.
GBD 2021 indicates that, despite early warnings that COVID-19 could threaten the gains that the world had made in saving children’s lives, these improvements continued during the pandemic, albeit at a slower pace. Still, stark differences in child mortality persist between regions. In 2021, one out of every four children who died worldwide lived in South Asia, while two out of every four children who died lived in sub-Saharan Africa.