Death rates among children ages 1-4 jumped 12% between 2021 and 2022, and for kids 5-14 the rate increased by 7% over the same period, according to data released this month by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

The rise in mortality for these young age groups reverses decades of progress in reducing childhood deaths, according to CNN.

The new data brief from the CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics also included information, first released in December 2023, about infant mortality rates, which rose 3.1% from 2021 to 2022 — the first increase in two decades.

Life expectancy for adults in the U.S. rebounded slightly in 2022, with the overall life expectancy rising to 77.5 years, according to the CDC.

However, the rise “offsets less than half of the 2.4 years of life lost in the first two years of the Covid-19 pandemic, and life expectancy is still lower than it’s been in about 20 years,” CNN reported.

Dr. Steven Woolf, director emeritus of the Virginia Commonwealth University Center on Society and Health, told CNN:

“Put simply, the fact that life expectancy in 2022 was lower than in 2019 means that Americans continue to die at higher rates than they did before the pandemic, despite the rebound.”

‘Every pediatrician, public health agency, and parent should be alarmed’

The increases in child mortality rates stand in stark contrast to the declines in mortality rates identified in all other age groups 15 and older. For example, the death rate for ages 15-24 decreased by 10.6%, and for ages 25-34, by 9.6%.

Read More: Young Children Died at Higher Rates in 2021-2022, as Adult Life Expectancy Rebounded