ATLANTA — Americans are living longer, but not in every corner of the country. A new study shows that in hundreds of U.S. counties, life expectancy has fallen.
The researchers believe problems such as smoking and obesity are partly to blame.
“There are enormous variations within the country,” said Dr. Christopher Murray, a University of Washington researcher. He’s a study author and an editor of the online journal Population Health Metrics, which released the study today.
Overall, life expectancy in the U.S. is at an all-time high. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recently estimated that a baby born in 2009 could expect to live 78 years and two months.
The CDC doesn’t calculate estimates by county; Murray’s research covers 2000 through 2007, when U.S. life expectancy grew a year to nearly 78.
A federal expert in these kinds of statistics said Murray’s methods were sound, but the findings aren’t surprising.
The U.S. estimate actually dropped from 2004 to 2005, noted Bob Anderson of the CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics. Given that downward blip — and the fact that statistics fluctuate more when you’re dealing with smaller populations — it’s not unexpected to see some local declines, he said.
The study found that life expectancy for women fell significantly in 702 of the nation’s more than 3,100 counties. The largest declines — by nearly two years — were in Mississippi’s Madison County. Life expectancy dropped for men in 251 counties, by more than two years in Kentucky’s Perry County and Mississippi’s Madison.
The counties with the largest increases in male life expectancy were almost four years in Georgia’s Fulton County (Atlanta) and more than three years in New York City, Washington and Alexandria, Va.
For women, the biggest jumps — 3 1/2 years — were in Alexandria and Wyoming’s Teton County, which includes the Jackson Hole ski area and much of Yellowstone National Park.
