Life expectancy globally at all time high after COVID pandemic

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Life expectancy in Europe has returned to the level it reached before the 2020 coronavirus pandemic, while the U.S. is still trying to regain lost ground. Overall, new numbers show life expectancy has increased in most parts of the world, with eastern sub-Saharan Africa showing the biggest gains over the past three decades.

European Union figures released this month show the average life expectancy across the bloc in 2023 was 81.5 years, representing almost a year's gain over 2022, as the coronavirus pandemic was coming to an end.

However, there are marked variations between European countries, noted Jennifer Beam Dowd, a professor of demography and population health and deputy director of the Leverhulme Center for Demographic Science at the University of Oxford.

?Within Europe, we're seeing really high life expectancy in countries like Spain and Italy, Sweden, Norway, but some countries are falling behind their peers and that includes the U.K.,? she said. ?And then Eastern Europe has made a lot of progress since the post-Soviet mortality crisis of the 1990s, but they're still lagging behind a bit.

?In higher income countries, we've seen continued rapid drops in deaths due to cardiovascular disease that has probably made the biggest impact on those numbers over the last 30 years or so. The leaders right now really are some East Asian countries, especially Japan, Hong Kong and Taiwan and South Korea, are doing really well,?