Healthy Living: Record Deaths – ABC27

(WHTM) — The numbers are in. There were 2.8 million deaths in the U.S. in 2020 according to the National Center for Health Statistics.

The focus has been on deaths from COVID-19 but new research has found that minorities made up the majority of extra non-COVID-related deaths.

The U.S. has been seeing a larger number of deaths than usual during the pandemic. But a new study has found these higher numbers are not only caused by COVID.

Researchers from the University of Notre Dame used publicly available numbers to calculate how many more deaths occurred in 2020 compared to 2017 to 2019.

Many of the additional deaths were caused by other things including homicide, suicide, alcoholism, dementia and other medical diseases.

They found that minorities suffered the brunt, representing 70% of the extra non-COVID-related deaths.

Men, particularly Black non-Hispanic men, made up 28% of these deaths.

This group only makes up about 7% of the whole U.S. population. The researchers did not look at why this was the case.

Future studies are needed to figure out the root causes and come up with prevention options.