The life expectancy of Australians has increased since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, new research from the Australian National University (ANU) has revealed.
A team from the ANU took a study completed at Oxford University last year and added data from Australia, comparing relative life expectancy across countries before and after the onset of the pandemic.
Their study, published in the International Journal of Epidemiology, found that the average life expectancy for Australians increased between 2019 and 2020 by 0.7 years for females and males.
It is, the researchers claim, the largest increase observed in Australia since the 1990s.
They also found that survival increased fairly equally across the country, with New South Wales, Queensland and Victoria each experiencing about half a year of increase in life expectancy.
Lockdowns, less mobility lead to fewer deaths
The 2020 increase in life expectancy ranks Australia highly among other countries. The nations with the next highest increases were Denmark and Norway, both with an increase of 0.1 and 0.2 years for females and males respectively.
The United States, however, trended downward, with the average life expectancy reducing by -1.7 and -2.2 years for females and males respectively.
The research team attributed Australia's rise to the country's response to COVID-19 in 2020.
Despite the stress of the Black Summer bushfires and the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic, life expectancy grew as a result of border closures and lockdowns, researchers said.
Fewer common infections were reported in 2020, with a 20 per cent reduction in the number of deaths from pneumonia and influenza.
Road fatalities also dipped, due to the fact that people were forced to remain at home.
"During the 1918 Spanish flu, attempts were made to close borders," the study's co-author Professor Vladimir Canudas-Romo said.
"Yet, once ports opened, the lack of a vaccination meant the virus spread with fatal effects. With modern-day vaccines, Australia has been able to escape this deadly fate."
And, Professor Canudas-Romo said, there was also a dip in the number of deaths from non-infectious diseases.
Life expectancy different to quality of life
Tim Driscoll, of the Sydney School of Public Health at the University of Sydney, said the findings of the study were interesting, given COVID-19's devastating impact on Australian society.
"I think all of us would have thought that because of the health problems that have come from COVID-19, with a lot of people dying as a result of that, and a lot of ill health arising with people having COVID-19, it's surprising that life expectancy was found to have improved more than would have been expected or more than it had been in recent years," Professor Driscoll said.
He said the real concern was in how many diseases might have gone undetected over the past two years, given the number of people assumed to have avoided hospitals and had fewer check-ups with GPs in order to avoid a COVID-19 exposure.
"It's not surprising that there would be decreased illness from infection. And in fact, if we look at influenza as an example, there's been an incredible decrease in the number of cases and a number of deaths from influenza in the community since COVID-19," Professor Driscoll said.
"But contrasting that, there's a lot of concern in the health community that people aren't going to the doctor because they're worried about interacting with the community, because they're worried about getting COVID-19.
But Professor Driscoll said just how much a decrease in doctors' visits could affect life expectancy in the coming years remained to be seen.
He also said, since 2020, the newer COVID variants of Delta and Omicron had increased the number of cases and deaths from the virus, further debilitating the healthcare system.
Professor Driscoll added that the findings were also not indicative of the broader wellbeing of the community, despite showing that there were some benefits to lockdowns.
One major concern throughout the pandemic has been its impact on mental health, but Professor Driscoll said that was hard to define through statistics.
"There was a lot of concern... early in the pandemic and with the first lockdowns about the effect on mental health, and that might increase the risk of suicide," he said.
"From what I've seen, I don't think there's good evidence that that happened, but that doesn't mean that there haven't been issues and challenges with the mental health of people who've been locked down and isolated."
He said ultimately, life expectancy was not the only signifier of health.
"It's not looking at quality of life," he said.
