(Reuters) – U.S. babies born in 2022 gained roughly a year in life expectancy compared with babies born a year earlier, federal data showed on Wednesday, marking progress after two consecutive years of declines largely due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Life expectancy at birth for 2022 newborns was 77.5 years, up from 76.4 in 2021 but still lower than the 78.8 years expected for those born in 2019, data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) suggests.
It will take “some time before we’re back to where we were in 2019, before the pandemic,” said Elizabeth Arias, a CDC researcher who worked on the report.
The study estimated babies’ life expectancy if mortality conditions when they were born were to persist throughout their lives.