Life expectancy in Sao Paulo decreased to 75.4 years after Covid-19 health situation | Photo: EFE
Sao Paulo, April 21 (RHC)-- The Seade Foundation, linked to the Government of Sao Paulo and the National Reference Center in Socioeconomic and Demographic Statistical Analysis reveals that life expectancy in this state fell for the first time since 1940.
In 2020, because of the COVID-19 pandemic, this indicator remained at 75.4 years, showing an unprecedented decline to the level of seven years earlier.
São Paulo is one of the Brazilian regions most affected by the pandemic, as some 88,528 of the nearly 375,000 Brazilians died after contracting the disease caused by the SASR-CoV-2 virus.
According to the report, in 2019 life expectancy had reached 76.4 years and since this indicator began to be measured in 1940 it had never decreased. Life expectancy at birth is the average number of years of life expected for a newborn person, if the existing mortality pattern at birth, in the natal geographic space, is maintained.
"The rapid increase in mortality levels, with the expansion of the pandemic, directly affected the demographic levels of longevity, returning to the figures observed between 2012 and 2013," the document specified.
According to the demographer of the Health Foundation, Carlos Eugenio Ferreira, part of the team that carried out the study, explained to local media that life expectancy at birth is one of the metrics officially adopted by the United Nations to try to explain mortality and compare statistics between different regions.
According to the researcher, although between the 1980s and 2000 the increase in the indicator was very discreet, due to various causes, life expectancy always increased. Infant mortality also decreased, so that the losses in the 15-34 age group were compensated in those decades.
One of the effects of Covid-19 is also the difference between men and women in terms of life expectancy. According to Ferreira, women had a life expectancy nine years longer than men, since the impact of violent deaths is greater among young men.
