
But research has found that having Medicaid or no health insurance is linked to a delayed cancer diagnosis. Interactions among these factors are complicated.įor example, early screening for signs of cancer can increase a person’s chance of survival.

Preventable risk factors like smoking, drinking, obesity, and lack of physical activity also played a big part. Researchers place the blame for the large gaps in life expectancy on differences in poverty, race/ethnicity, and access to quality healthcare and insurance. Read more: Lack of education may be as deadly as smoking » The report includes a county-by-county interactive map of death rates, life expectancy, and risk factors. The gap in the risk of death also widened since 1980 for people between 45 and 85 years of age. The gap between the best and worst rates in that category narrowed.ĭeath rates fell in most counties for the other age groups, except for 25- to 45-year-olds - 11.5 percent of counties saw an increased risk of death in this group. Risk fell in all counties for children under 5 years of age during that time. Researchers also calculated the risk of dying for five age groups between 19. This is even higher than top-ranking Japan, which has a life expectancy of 83.7 years. Several of the counties with the highest life expectancy were in Colorado, with the state’s Summit County topping the list at 86.8 years - 20 years higher than the county with the lowest life expectancy. These included New York County, the District of Columbia, and four counties in Alaska. Other counties experienced an increase in life expectancy between 19 of up to 18 percent. The other two are in Alabama and Oklahoma.

Of the 10 counties with the greatest declines, eight are in Kentucky. Some counties saw up to a 3 percent drop in life expectancy since 1980. The authors wrote that the overall increase in life expectancy, though, “masks massive variation at the county level.” Researchers compared death records and census returns on a county-by-county basis.

The study puts the average life expectancy in the United States at 79.1 years in 2014, an increase of 5.3 years since 1980. This is comparable to countries like Pakistan (66.4 years), Senegal (66.7 years), and India (68.3 years). Oglala Lakota County, South Dakota - home to the Pine Ridge Native American reservation - had the lowest life expectancy in the country at 66.8 years.
