Black American Life Expectancy Lags Behind Whites

Black Americans high exposure to the COVID-19 variants, underlying health conditions, and access to healthcare negatively impact their overall mortality rate.

The COVID-19 pandemic widened the once-narrowing gap between white and Black American life expectancy in the U.S. Death and census records show that the Black American life expectancy rose nearly four years from 1990-2019. African Americans lived to about 75 years of age on average while the white American life expectancy held steady at about age 79. But the disparity in life expectancy grew further apart over the past two years, due to deaths caused by COVID-19 infections.

The decades-long study on American mortality rates from 1990 through 2019 was published in the journal Annals of Internal Medicine. Researchers from the University of Washington revealed the disparities for subgroups of people including Hispanic, non-Hispanic Black, or non-Hispanic White race/ethnicity. Dr. Gregory Roth, the lead study author, and an associate professor of global health at the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME), told “Healthline” that the disproportion in Black American mortality rates was noticeable across state lines, “Race, ethnicity, and where you live both matter a great deal in determining how long you may live.”

The COVID-19 pandemic further provokes that notion, as the gap widened between white and Black American life expectancy once again. An analysis conducted by Kaiser Family Foundation, a leader in health policy analysis, showed that Black Americans are more than twice as likely to be hospitalized from infection and nearly two-times more likely to die from COVID-19 compared to white Americans. Overall, Black, Hispanic, American Indian, and Alaskan native people have experienced higher rates of death from infection than whites. But Black Americans have been disproportionately impacted by surges caused by new variants compared to all other races.

Black American workers were disproportionately exposed to COVID-19 since many were considered to be essential.

Life expectancy for Black Americans dropped to age 72, compared to 78 years for whites, according to the latest data available from The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The agency states that the COVID-related inequality is based upon a few key factors, “Race and ethnicity are risk markers for other underlying conditions that affect health, including socioeconomic status, access to health care, and exposure to the virus related to occupation, e.g., frontline, essential, and critical infrastructure workers.”

Underlying conditions like heart disease, diabetes, hypertension and obesity put Black Americans at higher risk of death. Dr. Roth believes that better access to healthcare, including routine screenings and inexpensive medications, could improve Black American mortality associated with COVID-19 infection. He further states that addressing disparities like structural racism and lack of access to WiFi for telehealth use would also improve Black life expectancy overall. He explains, “I’m hopeful because sometimes very bad things happen in life… but they’re so transparent that everybody sees it. The hard work now is going to be getting people to act on what we now know.”