Life expectancy falls for second straight year due to COVID-19, drug overdoses, CDC report finds

Accelerating deaths from COVID-19 and drug overdoses fueled a second straight year of worsening life expectancy, down to the shortest it has been since 1996, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Wednesday.

The estimates, published in a new report now analyzing the "final data" on American death certificates tracked by the CDC's National Center for Health Statistics, make official a steep decline first reported by the agency based on "preliminary data" back in August.

The final estimates differ only slightly from the provisional ones released earlier this year. At the time of the August report, federal authorities had already received data on more than 99% of death certificates for 2021.