Louisiana ranks 49th among the 50 states and the District of Columbia in life expectancy. That’s according to the latest CDC data which says Louisiana’s life expectancy in 2020 was 73 years, a decline of almost three years from 2019. Dr. Benjamin Springgate is Chief of Community and Population Medicine at LSU Health New Orleans and he says the pandemic played a significant role in a lower life expectancy.
“The change in the most recent data of course is the number of deaths that were associated with covid 19 as well as the number of deaths due to overdoses which called every single state to see a drop in life expectancy,” said Springgate. .
He says the increase is due to a combination of COVID deaths, poor health care, and drug deaths. He says the increase in drug deaths is tied to the opioid crisis and stressors caused by the COVID pandemic.
“People losing their jobs or access to their health care provider during different times and access to their support networks also placed a lot of strain on people who people who were at risk of overdose death,” he says.
Springgate recommends the state invest more in access to prevention treatment, which is far more cost-effective than jamming emergency rooms.
“It’s cheaper to prevent illness up front than to try to cure somebody when they’re in the intensive care unit,” he says, but he adds that it’s not all bad news. He says the expansion of access to insurance and health care means Louisiana is definitely making progress. He believes Louisiana is slowly moving in the right direction.
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