Even four years after the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, California residents aren’t living as long as they used to.

New research published July 9 in the Journal of the American Medical Association shows that though the state’s life expectancy is improving, it hasn’t returned to pre-pandemic levels. In 2024, the average life expectancy in California was 80.54 years, nearly one year shorter than in 2019, when it was 81.4 years, The New York Times reported.

The drop in life expectancy during the pandemic was sharp — nearly three years — and many experts thought it would bounce back just as fast. But the new data shows that recovery has been slow, and not just because of COVID-19.

“Four years after the beginning of the pandemic, for the largest state in the country to still have a deficit — that’s mind-blowing,” said lead author Hannes Schwandt, a health economist at Northwestern University. “Really quite a tragedy.”

Life expectancy is the average number of years a newborn can expect to live based on death rates at the time. It’s not a prediction for an individual, but it gives a snapshot of public health, The Times said.

In the U.S., life expectancy dropped from 78.8 years in 2019 to 76.4 years in 2021. 

While nationwide data for 2024 isn’t available yet, California’s numbers give a clue about where the country might be headed.

Researchers used data from the U.S. Census Bureau and California death records to look at life expectancy across different groups.

They found that low-income neighborhoods had the biggest drops in life expectancy during the pandemic. But by 2024, the gap between rich and poor areas was about the same as it was before the pandemic — just over 5.5 years.

As was the case before the pandemic, Black and Hispanic Californians still had the largest life expectancy deficits, The Times said.

• Black life expectancy in 2024 was 1.48 years below 2019 levels.

• Hispanic life expectancy was 1.44 years below 2019.

• White and Asian populations also had declines, but not as large — 0.63 and 1.06 years, respectively.

Before the pandemic, Hispanic Californians lived longer than white Californians. That gap has narrowed from 1.98 years longer in 2019 to just 1.17 years in 2024.

What’s driving these trends isn’t fully clear, the researchers said. But one major factor is the rise in drug overdoses, especially from fentanyl.

Overdose deaths hit Black and low-income communities the hardest from 2021 to 2023. The good news is that drug deaths declined slightly in 2024.

While this study focused only on California, it may be a harbinger for the rest of the country.