(CNN) - A new study finds life expectancy in the United States lags behind other high-income nations by an average of nearly five years.
In 2018, life expectancy in the U.S. was 78.7 years.
That's about three years less than the average life expectancy for 16 high-income peer countries.
But the life expectancy gap ballooned to nearly five years in 2020 after the U.S. experienced a particularly high mortality rate.
No other nation experienced a decline in life expectancy as large as the U.S.
Authors of the study wrote the predominant cause for this large decline was the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as other factors that have impacted Americans' health for decades.
The study was published Wednesday in the BMJ, a peer-reviewed medical journal published by the British Medical Association. »