US Life Expectancy Can Vary By 20 Years Depending On Where You Live (npr.org)

After analyzing records from every U.S. county between 1980 and 2014, Christopher Murray, head of the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington, and his team found that life expectancy can vary by more than 20 years from county to county. "In counties with the longest lifespans, people tended to live about 87 years, while people in places with the shortest lifespans typically made it only about 67," reports NPR. From the report: The discrepancy is equivalent to the difference between the low-income parts of the developing world and countries with high incomes, Murray notes. For example, it's about the same gap as the difference between people living in Japan, which is among countries with the longest lifespans, and India, which has one of the shortest, Murray says. The U.S. counties with the longest life expectancy are places like Marin County, Calif., and Summit County, Colo. -- communities that are well-off and more highly educated. Counties with the shortest life expectancy tend to have communities that are poorer and less educated. The lowest is in Oglala Lakota County, S.D., which includes the Pine Ridge Native American reservation. Many of the other counties with the lowest life expectancy are clustered along the lower Mississippi River Valley as well as parts of West Virginia and Kentucky, according to the analysis. There's no sign of the gap closing. In fact, it's appears to be widening. Between 1980 and 2014, the gap between the highest and lowest lifespans increased by about two years. The reasons for the gap are complicated. But it looks like the counties with the lowest lifespans haven't made much progress fighting significant health problems such as smoking and obesity. The study has been published in the journal JAMA Internal Medicine.

Comments

Re: Well relief is at hand for you

[burtosis]

Yeah I don't want to keep a fat chain smoker alive for a few extra years. Thank you Trump!

Look here the largest cluster of lagging lifespan is neatly outlined by the Bible Belt. Further if you read the actual journal abstract you would find

Question
Are inequalities in life expectancy among counties in the United States growing or diminishing, and what factors can explain differences in life expectancy among counties?
Findings
In this population-based analysis, inequalities in life expectancy among counties are large and growing, and much of the variation in life expectancy can be explained by differences in socioeconomic and race/ethnicity factors, behavioral and metabolic risk factors, and health care factors.
Meaning
Policy action targeting socioeconomic factors and behavioral and metabolic risk factors may help reverse the trend of increasing disparities in life expectancy in the United States.

Thus the actual journal describes it as a variety of causes, not smoking and drinking. The slashdot summary is moronic clickbait - dare I say "fake news" - by insunuating that these people deserve to die solely because of their bad choices. But don't let me spoil the hackneyed rebublican narrative.

Supplemental information and visualizations

[Okian Warrior]

I'm sure the new republican health care plan will provide more comprehensive coverage at much lower costs thus solving americas poor living in third world conditions. /s

For those who want a good visualization, here is the US map of the study results,

and here's the study, click on the "figures and tables" link in the overly complex mishmash of a web page for visualizations and caption explanations.

Re: "Progressive" solution to inequality

[Hognoxious]

Germany doesn't favour free enterprise as a randlicker would recognise it. They have commie things like laws against unfair dismissal and there's even worker representation on company boards. I'm not sure if you're allowed to work 60 hours a week with no extra pay even if you want to.