The Covid pandemic has caused the biggest decrease in life expectancy in western Europe since the second world war, according to a study.

Data from most of the 29 countries – spanning most of Europe, the US and Chile – that were analysed by scientists recorded reductions in life expectancy last year and at a scale that wiped out years of progress.

 

The biggest declines in life expectancy were among males in the US, with a decline of 2.2 years relative to 2019 levels, followed by Lithuanian males (1.7 years).

Life expectancy losses exceeded those recorded around the time of the dissolution of the eastern bloc in central and eastern Europe, according to the research, led by scientists at Oxford’s Leverhulme Centre for Demographic Science.

Dr José Manuel Aburto, a co-lead author of the study, 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 the second world war.”

The findings are contained in a paper published in the International Journal of Epidemiology after the analysis of the 29 countries for which official death registrations for last year had been published. A total of 27 experienced reductions in life expectancy.