The COVID-19 pandemic shaved 2.4 years off U.S. life expectancy, and the population has yet to fully recover from the setback, according to new data from the CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics.

A report released by the agency this week shows U.S. life expectancy at birth for 2022 was 77.5 years. That’s based on near-final data, and it reflects an increase of only 1.1 years over 2021’s 76.4 years.

Faring the best of all subpopulations in that time window are non-Hispanic people of American Indian and Alaska Native lineage. These groups lost some 6.2 years to the pandemic but sprang back to regain 2.3 years by 2022.

The Hispanic population had the next strongest recovery, reclaiming 2.2 years after losing 4.1 years during the pandemic period.

Next comes the Black non-Hispanic population with a gain of 1.6 years out of 3.6 years lost; the Asian non-Hispanic population with 1.0 year regained from 2.1 years lost; and the White non-Hispanic population with 0.8 year regained from a loss of 2.1 years between 2019 and 2021.

Other key findings from the report:

• The White non-Hispanic advantage over the Black non-Hispanic population declined by 14.5% from 2021 (5.5 years) to 2022 (4.7 years).
• Regardless of Hispanic origin, life expectancy for the Black population has consistently been lower than that of the White population, but the gap had been narrowing during nearly the past 3 decades, from 7.1 years in 1993 to 4.0 in 2019 (7 years).
• The Hispanic life expectancy advantage over the White non-Hispanic population increased by 127.3% from 2021 (1.1 years) to 2022 (2.5 years).
• Between 2019 and 2021, the Hispanic population lost most of the life expectancy advantage it had experienced relative to the White non-Hispanic population (3.1 years to 1.1) since it was first recorded in 2006 (7 years).
• The Asian non-Hispanic life expectancy advantage over the White non-Hispanic population increased by 2.9% from 2021 (6.8 years) to 2022 (7 years).

Declines in mortality due to COVID-19 were “the primary reason for the increases in life expectancy from 2021 to 2022 observed for the total population and each of the five Hispanic origin and race groups” shown in the report, the authors comment. More:

Decreases in mortality due to COVID-19 accounted for 92.4% of the life expectancy increase for the Hispanic population. They also accounted for much of the life expectancy increases for the White (80.6%), Asian (79.5%), Black (71.9%), and American Indian and Alaska Native (70.0%) non-Hispanic populations.

The authors acknowledge several limitations in their methodology. Among these is that deaths requiring investigation—notably infant deaths and those from external injuries and drug overdoses—may be underestimated in the source data and therefore under-accounted for in the life-expectancy projections.

The CDC has posted the full report.