Life expectancy in Brazil has begun to creep up again as the threat of Covid recedes, increasing by three and a half years between 2021 and 2022, according to fresh data released by the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE).
Life expectancy at birth in Brazil climbed to 75.5 years in 2022, from 72.8 the previous year. In 2019, before the pandemic, life expectancy at birth was 76.2. Women still live longer than men: a life expectancy at birth of 79 years compared to 72.
“With the worst of Covid behind us, we partially recovered life expectancy,” said Izabel Marri, a researcher at the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics.
Brazil recorded over 707,000 deaths caused by Covid — only behind the U.S. Throughout the most acute moments of the pandemic, researchers said that poor data logging means that the real numbers could be far worse, however.
The new data was based on the 2022 census, which showed that the Brazilian population is undergoing a steep aging process and falling fertility rates. It corrects much less grim estimates that had been published in recent years, which did not take into account the full impact of Covid in Brazil and presented less reliable data than the census.
An array of other conditions continued to pose grave risks to Brazilians’ health.
A study by the Institute for Studies on Health Policymaking (IEPS) shows that mortality due to avoidable causes grew in 2021, after a decade of decline. The study did not take Covid into account.
The rate of avoidable deaths sat at 99 per 100,000 people in 2010, dropping every year until reaching 89 in 2020. In 2021, it ticked up to 92.
Many of these deaths are caused by vaccine-preventable infections, such as tetanus, tuberculosis, and hepatitis; colorectal cancers, associated with poor diet; cervical tumors, linked to non-vaccination against the human papillomavirus; cardiovascular diseases; obesity; uncontrolled diabetes and high blood pressure, in addition to a series of other conditions that are now known to be preventable.
Other causes related to violence are also notable. Researchers say that could explain why the rate of avoidable deaths spiked the most in Rio de Janeiro, a state where organized crime dominates big chunks of territory, and Roraima, where wildcat mining runs amok.
On another note, the child mortality rate, that is, the probability of a newborn completing its first year of life, was 12.9 for every 1,000 births in 2022. In the 1960s, the mortality rate of children under five was 164 deaths for every 1,000 newborns in Brazil’s Northeast, the country’s poorest region.
“The next few years should be marked by an increase in deaths as a result of the aging of the population,” says the IBGE note.
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