Excess mortality in the United States in the 21st century
Open accessAbstract
We use three indexes to identify how age-specific mortality rates in the United States compare to those in a composite of five large European countries since 2000. First, we examine the ratio of age-specific death rates in the United States to those in Europe. These show a sharp deterioration in the US position since 2000. Applying European age-specific death rates in 2017 to the US population, we then show that adverse mortality conditions in the United States resulted in 400,700 excess deaths that year. Finally, we show that these excess deaths entailed a loss of 13.0 My of life. In 2017, excess deaths and years of life lost in the United States represent a larger annual loss of life than that associated with the COVID-19 epidemic in 2020.
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The findings reflect a deepening during the pandemic of the US mid-life mortality crisis that has led to the stalling of life expectancy in recent years.
“our findings reflect a deepening during the pandemic of the US mid-life mortality crisis that has led to the stalling of life expectancy in recent years.13,14,46”
From Quantifying impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic through life-expectancy losses: a population-level study of 29 countries (2022) · cites this paper as [46]
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“We also found that the oldest age group in our analysis (85+) contributed considerably to the CVD mortality divergence, which is noteworthy given that the United States performs well in old-age mortality (Preston & Vierboom, 2021).”
BackgroundThe “double jeopardy” of midlife and old age mortality trends in the United States
Abrams, L. R., Myrskylä, M., & Mehta, N. K. (2023) · Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences · doi:10.1073/pnas.2308360120 · Cited by 20 · see citing works
- Authors
- Preston, S. H., & Vierboom, Y. C.
- Affiliations
- University of Pennsylvania (US)
- Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research (DE)
- Corresponding author
- Vierboom, Yana C.
- Venue
- Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
- Publisher
- National Academy of Sciences
- Published
- 2021-04-12
- Volume
- 118
- Issue
- 16
- ISSN
- 0027-8424 (ISSN-L)
- 1091-6490
- PMC
- PMC8072323
- OpenAlex
- W3152494204
- Cited by
- 62
- References
- 13
- Citations by year
- 2026: 3 · 2025: 2 · 2024: 7 · 2023: 9 · 2022: 33 · 2021: 8
- FWCI
- 22.45
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- hybrid
- doi.org
- Licence
- Locations
- Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (publishedVersion, cc-by-nc-nd)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by-nc-nd)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- RePEc: Research Papers in Economics (submittedVersion)
- Funders
- HHS | NIH | National Institute on Aging (P30 AG12836)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Demography › Insurance, Mortality, Demography, Risk Management
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Epidemiology › Healthcare Systems and Public Health
- Social Sciences › Health › Health disparities and outcomes
- Keywords
- excess mortality, age-specific mortality, United States mortality, years of life lost, mortality decline
- MeSH terms
- COVID-19, SARS-CoV-2, Adolescent, Adult, Aged, Aged, 80 and over, Cause of Death, Child, Child, Preschool, Europe, Female, Humans, Infant, Infant, Newborn, Male, Middle Aged, Mortality, United States, Young Adult
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