American women are outliving men by 6 years since pandemic. But why?
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The life expectancy gap between women and men in the United States expanded to 5.8 years between 2010 and 2021, the biggest difference in longevity between the sexes in decades, according to a new report.
Researchers found that American women can expect to live around six years longer than men, citing disparities from COVID-19 and drug overdose deaths as some of the reasons driving the biggest gap since 1996.
The study, published Monday in the JAMA Internal Medicine journal, examined how COVID-19 and other underlying causes of death widened the gap from 2010 to 2021.
While distinct cardiovascular and lung cancer death rates have long been prime explanations for why women outlive men in the U.S., researchers said other leading causes of death are responsible and that multiple factors are widening the gap.
COVID-19 became the largest drivers for life expectancy gap
For U.S. men between 2010 and 2019, higher mortality rates for diabetes, heart disease, unintentional injuries, homicide and suicide were the main drivers for the life expectancy gap. Part of the gap was minimized by similar mortality rates between men and women from cancer and Alzheimer’s disease.
But differences in mortality rates from COVID-19 became the leading reason the gap widened between men and women during the pandemic, which began in 2020.
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