Indirect effects of the COVID-19 pandemic: A cause-of-death analysis of life expectancy changes in 24 countries, 2015 to 2022

Abstract

Worldwide, mortality was strongly affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, both directly through COVID-19 deaths and indirectly through changes in other causes of death. Here, we examine the impact of the pandemic on COVID-19 and non-COVID-19 mortality in 24 countries: Australia, Austria, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, Chile, Croatia, Czechia, Denmark, England and Wales, Hungary, Japan, Latvia, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Northern Ireland, Poland, Russia, Scotland, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and the United States (USA). Using demographic decomposition methods, we compare age- and cause-specific contributions to changes in female and male life expectancy at birth in 2019–2020, 2020–2021, and 2021–2022 with those before the COVID-19 pandemic (2015–2019). We observe large life expectancy losses due to COVID-19 in most countries, usually followed by partial recoveries. Life expectancy losses due to cardiovascular disease (CVD) mortality were widespread during the pandemic, including in countries with substantial (Russia, Central and Eastern Europe, and the Baltic countries) and more modest (USA) improvements in CVD mortality before the pandemic. Many Anglo-Saxon countries, including Canada, Scotland, and the USA, continued their pre-pandemic trajectories of rising drug-related mortality. Most countries saw small changes in suicide mortality during the pandemic, while alcohol mortality increased and cancer mortality continued to decline. Patterns for other causes were more variable. By 2022, life expectancy had still not returned to pre-pandemic levels in several countries. Our results suggest important indirect effects of the pandemic on non-COVID-19 mortality through the consequences of COVID-19 infection, non-pharmaceutical interventions, and underreporting of COVID-19-related deaths.