Did you know there are over 150 different community indicators on Grant County Trends - each updated throughout the year? But which ones, and when?
This issue of the Grant County Trends blog lists the most recently updated indicators on the Grant County Trends website.
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Recent Updates
The full list of indicators on Grant County Trends can be found here.
Blog Feature: Life Expectancy in Grant County
Impact of the Pandemic: Grant County Life Expectancy Falls More than in State & US
Life expectancy at birth is a popular way of showing changes in the overall health of a community. Over time, life expectancy at birth has steadily increased due to improvements in public health. Grant County Trends provides the data for the county along with the state & US as benchmarks in the indicator 5.1.1 Life Expectancy at Birth.
One of the striking impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic is the swift and dramatic decline in overall life expectancy in just one year. Life expectancy at birth fell across the United States by nearly a year and half, returning the nation to a level it first achieved in 2003 – essentially wiping out over 15 years of increases in health outcomes.
Washington state, in part due to higher vaccination rates and stricter masking mandates, fared better than the nation with a reduction of almost a year. For the first time in over a decade, the life expectancy at birth for an infant born in Washington fell to under 80 years.
Turning to Grant County, we see that life expectancy at birth fell by 1.73 years (about 21 months) – a steeper drop than in both the state and the nation. Life expectancy at the end of 2020 matched what it was back in 2005, over a decade and a half ago. A newborn in Grant County is currently expected to live, on average, 78 years, above the US overall average of 77.3 years but below the Washington state life expectancy of 79.75 years.
Unfortunately, the Covid-19 pandemic hit some groups harder than others. In particular, there was a differential response by ethnicity, with Hispanic populations seeing a reduction in life expectancy of 2.8 years across the state and over 3 full years decline in Grant County, matching the US average decline for the Hispanic population.