New research has revealed a widening gender gap in life expectancy in the U.S., with women projected to live about six years longer than men, marking the largest disparity since 1996. A growing disparity: Published in JAMA Internal Medicine on Nov.13, the study led by the University of California, San Francisco and Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health attributes the rise in life expectancy gender gap to the COVID-19 pandemic and the opioid overdose epidemic. In 2010, the U.S. gender gap was 4.8 years, which subsequently grew to 5.8 years at the height of the pandemic in 2021.