Reductions in life expectancy in Europe caused by the COVID-19 pandemic have not been seen since the last World War, according to an analysis published today.
Oxford University researchers studied 29 countries and found that 27 experienced a reduction in life expectancy last year.
So far, the continent has reported some 1.2 million deaths from the virus – although many more deaths have been attributed to indirect effects of the pandemic.
During the six years of World War 2, Europe suffered up to 20 million deaths – through war and genocide. In addition, the Soviet Union lost 24 million people.
The study, which included the USA and Chile, found that men have been worse affected than women by the pandemic, reflecting UK data published last week.
The largest male decline in life expectancy was in the USA – of 2.2 years – followed by Lithuania, with a decline of 1.7 years, according to the report in the International Journal of Epidemiology.
Researcher Dr José Manuel Aburto, from Oxford’s Leverhulme Centre for Demographic Science, said: “For Western European countries such as Spain, England and Wales, Italy, Belgium, among others, the last time such large magnitudes of declines in life expectancy at birth were observed in a single year was during WW-II.”
He added: “22 countries included in our study experienced larger losses than half a year in 2020. Females in eight countries and males in 11 countries experienced losses larger than a year. To contextualize, it took on average 5.6 years for these countries to achieve a one-year increase in life expectancy recently: progress wiped out over the course of 2020 by COVID-19.”
Quantifying impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic through life expectancy losses: a population-level study of 29 countries. International Journal of Epidemiology 27 September 2021
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