COVID-19 cut millions of healthy life years across Europe, study shows

New research reveals the hidden costs of the Pandemie: Millions of years of Lost Life Lost, with poorer countries and older adults is the loudest.

Study: Direct and indirect effects of the COVID-19 Pandemic on the life expectancy and personal years of life lost with and without disability: a systematic analysis for 18 European countries, 2020-2022. Image Credit: Hyejin Kang / Shutterstock

Upcoming research indicates that the Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has shortened pandemic lives in more ways than we thought. A recent study published in the magazine Plos -medication It appears that COVID-19 not only caused mortality in the millions, but also reduced the years that people could have live without disabilities. The researchers analyzed data from 18 European countries with the help of Multi-State Markov models to follow health transitions, so that a lasting impact on life expectancy outside the virus itself was discovered.

The aftermath of COVID-19

Life expectancy has steadily increased in the last century, driven by medical progress, improved public health and better living conditions. However, worldwide crises, such as pandemies, can reverse such progress. Although many studies have quantified the death rates that are directly associated with COVID-19, there is less known about its indirect effects.

Factors such as delayed health care, mental health struggle and economic instability may have led to extra premature deaths. In addition, distinguishing deaths as a result of COVID-19 of those who are indirectly linked to pandemic-related disruptions-including potential misclassification of COVID-19 as the cause of death for people with terminal diseases-staying.

Another critical gap in research is to understand how many of these lost years were free, because older individuals and people with existing disorders were at a greater risk. With the help of data from the English longitudinal study of aging (Elsa) and the survey for health, aging and retirement in Europe (share), this study was intended to fill that gap by investigating the lost person of life (Pyll) because of the direct and indirect effects of the pandemic.

Personal years of life lost (pyll) per head of the population in the population of 35 and older and country and country, sorted by the falling gross domestic product per head of the population.

Assessment of handicaps as a result of COVID-19

In order to assess the impact of COVID-19 on life expectancy and handicap-free years, the team of researchers analyzed data from 289 million adults in 18 European countries between 2020 and 2022. With the help of a statistical model that was responsible for pre-building trends in illness and mortality, they followed the health transmits of people of 35 and parent.

The model categorized individuals in eight health states, starting in disease-free individuals and the cover of different combinations of cognitive impairment, cardiovascular disease, disability, dementia and, finally, death.

The research has integrated mortality data from several sources, including national statistics, while a distinction between COVID-19 makes deaths and non-famous surplus mortality with the help of two scenarios to tackle potential misclassification. One scenario adopted a genuine reduction in non-famous deaths, while the other considered a possible replacement of expected non-famous deaths by COVID-19 on death certificates. To guarantee accuracy, they carried out statistical simulations to generate 95% uncertainty intervals (eg 16.8 million pylls [12.0–21.8 million]), reflection of the variability in the data.

Great findings

The study showed that between 2020 and 2022, 16.8 million person’s years of life (95% uncertainty interval: 12.0-21.8 million) were lost in the 18 countries studied. Of these, 11.6–13.2 million years were due to registered COVID-19 deaths, while 3.6-5.3 million were linked to non-known surplus deaths that were attributed to disruptions of health care or unintended consequences of interlocking measures.

Surprisingly, almost 60% of these lost years would have been free of disabled people, which means that many people who died prematurely were in good health before the pandemic. Men lost 1.5 times more pylls than women and already deepen existing gender differences in life expectancy.

The burden of the lost years of life was highest in older adults, with 60% of the pylls taking place in people over 80 and 30% in those between 65 and 80 years. Moreover, almost half of the years of life in people older than 80 would have been lived without disabilities, challenging assumptions that the pandemia mainly struck vulnerable individuals.

The study also found striking differences between countries. Nations with a lower GDP per head of the population (eg Estonia, Poland) experienced higher pylls per head of the population, with disproportionately more disabled years lost, while Sweden and Switzerland did the best. It is important that countries with lower incomes not only lost more total years of life, but also a higher share of healthy, disabled -free years.

Moreover, life expectancy at the age of 35 fell by a maximum of 2.8 years in 2021, with more than two-thirds of this loss with disabilities-free years. Only Sweden showed an almost full of recovery of pre-Pandemic life expectancy in 2022, which stood out between the 18 countries studied.

In addition to COVID-19 Deaths, the increasing trend in non-familiar deaths from 2020 to 2022 suggested that disruptions of pandemic-related healthcare had a lasting effect. While COVID-related Pyll dropped as the vaccination coverage expanded, non-famous deaths continued to rise, especially in older adults.

Higher vaccination coverage and GDP per head of the population were independently associated with lower pylls. Both factors have contributed to the reduction of years of life that have been lost due to direct COVID-19 deaths and indirect non-famous surplus mortality. These findings emphasized the broader impact of the pandemic and underline the need for more resilient health care systems and better preparedness for future crises for public health.

Conclusions

In summary, the findings drawn attention to the fact that the COVID-19-Pandemie caused profound losses in life expectancy in Europe, not only by direct infections, but also because of disruptions of healthcare. While vaccines helped to reduce COVID-related deaths, non-famous excess deaths continued to rise after the pandemic.

Alarming, most of the lost years were free of disabled people, which indicates a greater toll than previously assumed. Older people, especially those older than 80, carried the biggest burden, but many were healthy for the pandemic.

The study also proved to be broadened socio -economic inequalities between countries and gently gorges in death. Countries with a lower GDP not only lost more years, but also more years of healthy living, which exerted inequality.

These findings emphasize the urgent need for reinforced health care systems, the policy that tackles socio-economic and gender differences and proactive measures to reduce future health-related crises. Protecting healthy older adults and investing in health care resilience arise as critical priorities for future pandemic readiness.