(NewsNation) — The U.S. life expectancy gap between men and women widened again in 2021, signaling, on average, men die nearly 6 years before women, according to new research published Monday.
A research paper published in the journal JAMA Internal Medicine revealed the difference increased to 5.8 years in 2021 — a significant jump from the 4.8-year gap in 2010, when it was at its smallest in recent history, according to researchers. It’s the largest increase since 1996.
“There’s been a lot of research into the decline in life expectancy in recent years, but no one has systematically analyzed why the gap between men and women has been widening since 2010,” said author Brandon Yan, a UCSF internal medicine resident physician and research collaborator at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.
Researchers analyzed data from the National Center for Health Statistics to examine which causes of death were lowering life expectancy at the highest rates. Data was split into two groups — women and men — estimating the effects to identify how much different causes reinforce the gap.
The paper revealed that the coronavirus pandemic was the largest factor in this gap, as men were more likely to die from COVID-19, likely due to health behaviors and social factors.
Unintentional injuries, poisonings —mostly drug overdoses — accidents, and suicide were other contributors to the widening gap from 2019 to 2021.
Before the pandemic, unintentional deaths, suicide, homicide, heart disease and diabetes, were the main factors in expanding the life expectancy gap.
The overall life expectancy in the U.S. dropped in 2021 to 76.1 years — down from 78.8 years in 2019 and 77 years in 2020.