COVID-19 widens gap in Californians' life expectancies between ethnic groups: research

LOS ANGELES, July 8 (Xinhua) -- A new study has found that the life expectancies of different ethnic groups in California changed dramatically from 2019 to 2021, and that the racial and economic health disparities exposed by COVID-19 were the key factors.

California, the most populous state in the United States, had 1,988,606 deaths from 2015 to 2021, including 654,887 from 2020 to 2021, while state life expectancy declined from 81.40 years in 2019 to 79.20 years in 2020, and to 78.37 years in 2021, according to the research published Thursday in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

But changes in life expectancy in 2020 and 2021 were not even when they were measured by race and ethnicity. Life expectancy is a hypothetical measure of how long those born in a specific year will live based on that year's mortality rates.

Researchers found that between 2019 and 2021, the life expectancy for Latino Californians fell by almost six years, from 82.5 years to 76.8. That plunge is twice the average decline of about three years for all Californians, and three times more than the decrease for white Californians of close to two years.

Moreover, prior to the pandemic, white Californians had a lower life expectancy than Latinos, of 80.5 years, but in 2021 the expected life span of whites decreased to 78.6 years, higher than Latinos by 1.6 years.

The life expectancy also decreased by nearly four years for African Americans in the Golden State, from 74.8 years to 71, and by three years for Asians living there, from 86.6 years to 83.5.

These findings are supported by the data released by authorities.

California's COVID dashboard showed Latinos experiencing COVID cases and deaths at a rate far exceeding their 38 percent share of the population. Latinos made up 45.8 percent of COVID cases and 43.6 percent of deaths overall.

The researchers wrote that the disproportionately large decreases in life expectancy among Latino and Black populations reflect their greater exposure to COVID-19 infection, reflected in higher hospitalization and death rates.

"This disparity, much like other racial and ethnic inequities, has roots in the social determinants of health as well as structural barriers resulting from systemic racism that have helped perpetuate disparities for generations," according to the study.

"In the case of COVID-19, Hispanic and non-Hispanic Black populations were more likely to rely on jobs (often as frontline workers), transportation, and housing conditions that heightened viral exposure and to encounter barriers to health care, a higher prevalence of comorbid conditions, and socioeconomic challenges that jeopardized their health," it concluded.

The study also showed a widened life expectancy gap between the rich and the poor during the pandemic period.

Before the pandemic, researchers found, residents in California's poorest 1 percent of census tracts could be expected to live to nearly 76 years, about 11.5 fewer years than those in the richest 1 percent of tracts. In 2021 that gap grew to 15.5 fewer years.