Changes in Life Expectancy and Causes of Death Structure in Brazil and its 27 States after the COVID-19 Pandemic

Raphael Villela Almeida, Instituto de Pesquisa Econômica Aplicada (IPEA)
Angelita Carvalho, ENCE
Ana Carolina Bertho, National School of Statistical Sciences (ENCE), Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE)
César Augusto Marques Silva, Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP)

Brazil was severely impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. However, the COVID-19 deaths were reduced sharply in the country in 2022. After the great loss in LE at birth in 2020 and 2021, the recovery by 2022 was sharp, although not sufficient to reach the pre-pandemic level. However, we estimated that in 2023, LE at birth has surpassed the 2019 level. The contribution of the population aged 60 years or older accounted for most of the gains by 2023. However, at the subnational level great heterogeneity in the mortality risk was observed. We estimated the changes in combined-sex LE at birth for Brazil and its 27 states between 2019 and 2023, and applied the continuous decomposition to estimate the contribution of each age group to the changes in LE at birth. For the full paper we will analyze the changes the causes of death structure in Brazil and its states. We will estimate age-standardized death risk ratios using the 2019 Brazilian population age structure as the population standard to understand which groups of causes of death besides COVID-19 explain the changes in the mortality experiences at the subnational level in Brazil since 2019, but particularly in 2022 and 2023.

Keywords: Decomposition analysis, Civil Registration and Vital Statistics, Health and Morbidity, Population, Shocks and Pandemics

See extended abstract.