"In 2019, someone born in the U.S. had a life expectancy of nearly 80 years. In 2020, because of the pandemic, that dropped to 77 years. In 2021 life-span dropped again — to 76.1 years. And for some Americans, life expectancy is even lower, according to a provisional analysis from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. "The results of this study are very disturbing," says Dr. Steven Woolf, a professor of population health and health equity at Virginia Commonwealth University. "This shows that U.S. life expectancy in 2021 was even lower than in 2020," he says. Other high-income countries have seen a rebound in life expectancy, which Woolf says makes the U.S. results, "all the more tragic." One of the most dramatic drops in life expectancy in 2021 was among American Indian and Alaskan Native people. Between 2020 and 2021 the life expectancy for this group fell by almost two years, from 67.1 in 2020 to 65.2 in 2021. "That's horrific," Woolf says. "The losses in the Native American population have been terrible during the COVID-19 pandemic. And it reflects a lot of barriers that tribal communities face in getting access to care," he says."