Protesters rally against cuts to federal safety net programs, including Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, in this 2011 file photo from Chicago. Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images
New federal data shows that life expectancy in Maryland increased slightly in 2021, a feat that only a handful of states reached in a year when the COVID-19 pandemic was in full swing and most states saw decreased life expectancy.
Maryland’s life expectancy grew 0.4 years, going from 76.8 in 2020 to 77.2 in 2021, according to the data in the U.S. State Life Tables released in August by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Nationwide, life expectancy dipped during the same period, from an average of 77 years in 2020 to 76.4 in 2021, according to the report.
Maryland was just one of 11 states that saw life expectancy gains during that time. It posted the sixth-biggest increase for the year: New Jersey gained the most, rising 1.5 years, from 77.5 to 79 years, followed closely by New York, which rose from 77.7 to 79 years.
Alaska had the biggest drop among the 39 states where life expectancy fell, dropping 2.1 years from 76.6 in 2020 to 74.5 in 2021. It was followed by West Virginia, which posted a 1.8-year drop, from 72.8 to 71 years.
Understanding why Maryland life expectancy went up is a challenging task, according to state health officials and population researchers. Life expectancy is influenced by many factors, including the emergence of the COVID-19 virus as well as gender, race, location and access to health care.
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“It is a complex data point to compute given variety in both individuals and care,” said Chase Cook, communication director for the Maryland Department of Health, in an email. “It is difficult to speak to the specific reason why the state’s life expectancy rose while others fell in this instance.”
Life expectancy in this context is the age which people are expected to live at time of birth.
Alison Gemmill, assistant professor at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, who researches population and reproductive health, said that life expectancy data can be useful but comes with nuances.
“It can be kind of a misleading statistic,” she said. “There is always this misconception that people think it’s the average age that people live in general. But once you get to age 20 or 40, the years you’re expected to live are actually much higher than the average life expectancy. It’s because life expectancy is so influenced by infant mortality and mortality at younger ages.”
She noted that the emergence of COVID-19 also complicates data analysis. Since Northeastern states such as Maryland were hit harder at the start of the pandemic, it may have led to life expectancy bouncing back stronger in 2021 than it did in other states, she said.
“My intuition is that COVID hit Maryland harder in 2020, as it did in a lot of Northeastern and mid-Atlantic states … Pre-vaccine era, you see that Maryland does have higher rates of excess mortality compared to maybe some other states,” she said. “So, their life expectancy was lower. And because there was so much death, especially among vulnerable groups in 2020, then you have less deaths among those groups in 2021.
“The people who died from COVID at the beginning of the pandemic are older, they’re the most vulnerable. So that happened sooner in the states that had really big COVID spikes,” Gemmill said. “The people who were going to die from COVID already died in 2020, and that COVID didn’t hit as hard in a place like Maryland in 2021.”
She suspects that future data on life expectancy could increase as the COVID-19 pandemic becomes more manageable.
A closer look
Gemmill also advised that a statewide average can cover up life expectancy variations in location and demographics.
There are differences between male and female life expectancy, for example. It is a near-global phenomenon that males tend to have a lower life expectancy at infancy, during their youth and in old age compared to females. The CDC reports that in Maryland, the female life expectancy (79.9) was higher by 5.6 years in 2021 than that of males (74.3).
Gemmill also noted that life expectancy will vary based on where in Maryland people live, as well as by race, although that was not discussed in the most recent CDC report.
“There are geographic differences within Maryland. If we think about Baltimore City in particular, we know that with the circumstances with high poverty and racialized poverty, that it has a different level of life expectancy than a wealthier county — like Baltimore County,” she said.
She also added that local factors such as deaths due to opioids will impact life expectancy in different counties.
The Maryland Department of Health reflects those difference in its annual Vital Statistics Report, with the most recent report showing 2021 data similar to the CDC’s numbers.
According to the state’s report, the city of Baltimore had the lowest life expectancy in Maryland, at 71 years. Baltimore County, on the other hand, had a life expectancy of 77.2 years, the state average for 2021.
Three Maryland counties had a life expectancy in 2021 over 80 years: Montgomery (83.5 years), Howard (82.8 years) and Frederick (80.2 years).
“That overall state-level estimate is going to mask those within-state differences,” Gemmill said. “Lots of different things to potentially explore at the more local level.”
For Gemmill, the life expectancy is just one useful metric and should be used to ensure that not only are people living longer lives, but also they they have a high quality of life in those later years.
“Obviously, we want people to grow older and we want them to do so in a way that they are free from disability and these other comorbidities,” she said. “I think society’s goals should be more about ensuring that people live long and healthy lives.
“Life expectancy is just one number and we want to make sure that those years at the end of a life span are lived optimally,” she said.