NJ Saw Life Expectancy Decline In 2020 With COVID-19 Deaths

NEW JERSEY — Life expectancy in New Jersey declined by more than two years in 2020, according to a new report from the National Center for Health Statistics.

New Jersey's overall life expectancy shortened from 80.1 years in 2019 to 77.5 in 2020. Nationally, life expectancy dropped to 77 years in 2020, down from 78.8 in 2019. No state saw an increase in life expectancy in 2020.

COVID-19 is behind the largest spike in mortality in 100 years, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

In New Jersey, 34,480 people have died of COVID illnesses, according to state health officials. That includes 19,042 deaths in 2020, according to a U.S. News & World Report database.

Among New Jersey women, the life expectancy totaled 80.5 years in 2020, compared to 74.6 years for men. While women have longer life expectancy than men in all states, New Jersey recorded othe 14th-largest disparity in the U.S. at 5.9 years.

New Jersey's life expectancy at age 65 totaled 18.2 years in 2020 — 16.7 for men and 19.6 for women.

Life expectancy in the United States steadily increased from the late 1960s (70 in 1968) to about 2015, according to data from The World Bank. After that, life-expectancy figures hovered around 79 until 2020, when they dropped off. About 60 nations and territories rank ahead of the U.S. in terms of life expectancy, with Hong Kong and Japan topping the world at 85 years, the data says.

Several states saw life expectancy decrease by less than a year in 2020, including Hawaii, where COVID shaved only two months off a person’s life. Other states in that group were New Hampshire (four months), Maine (five months), and Washington and Oregon (both eight months).

The states with the highest life expectancy in 2020 are Hawaii (80.7 years), Washington (79.2 years), Minnesota (79.1 years), and California, Massachusetts and New Hampshire (79 years).

The states with the lowest life expectancy in 2020 are from Southern states, including Mississippi (71.9 years), West Virginia (72.8 years), Louisiana (73.1 years), Alabama (73.2 years) and Kentucky (73.5 years).

Dr. Robert Anderson, the chief of mortality statistics at the National Center for Health Statistics, told NBC News the trend could continue when the 2021 report is issued, because COVID-19 deaths continued to increase that year.

“We really haven’t really seen anything like this since the 1918 flu pandemic,” he told the network.

After the flu outbreak, the average life expectancy fell from 50.9 years in 1917 to 39.1 years in 1918, he said.