Study reveals the Americans who die 20 years younger than their peers as US life expectancy ‘gap’ is laid bare

If you are poor, a minority and live in either southern or western America, you are likely to die up to 20 years earlier than your peers.

That is the shocking conclusion of a study published in The Lancet that tracked shifts in life expectancy by geography, income and ethnicity over the last two decades.

It found the gap between the longest- and shortest-lived groups had grown by about 7.5 years in just two decades — up from a 12.5-year gap in 2000.

Nationwide, America has a life expectancy of 77.5 years, according to the latest estimates from the CDC.

But progress has stalled in recent years, with life expectancy nationwide flatlining and then falling during the Covid pandemic, before recovering slightly.

Native Americans in the West were the shortest lived overall, with an average life expectancy of 63.6 years in 2021.

Those who were black, poor and lived in rural areas in the south were only a few years ahead, with a life expectancy of 68 years, while poor White Americans in the Appalachia region had the third lowest life expectancy at 71.1 years.

At the other end of the scale, Asian Americans had the highest life expectancy at 84 years, Latino Americans not in the south had the second highest at 79.4 years, and Americans in majority-white counties had the third highest — at 77.2 years.

For the study, based on data from the National Vital Statistics System and population estimates from the National Center for Health Statistics, researchers split the US into what they termed the ’10’ Americas — based on geography, income and ethnicity.

They consisted of counties with a minority Asian and Native or Pacific Islander (AIAN) population; Latinos spread across the country and those living in the western and southern US; majority-white counties, white rural counties and white people in low-income counties.

Others included African-Americans across the country, in rural counties and in segregated cities; and AIAN people in the central and western US. 

The researchers blamed the large life expectancy gap on the division of resources, discrimination in society and barriers to accessing education and healthcare.

Senior author Dr Christopher Murray, a demographer at the University of Washington, Seattle, said: ‘The extent and magnitude of health disparities in American society are truly alarming in a country with the wealth and resources of the USA.

‘These disparities reflect the unequal and unjust distribution of resources and opportunities that have profound consequences on well-being and longevity, especially in marginalized populations. ‘

The above graph shows life expectancy since 2000 in the 10 groups created by the study

The above shows the life expectancy of men and women from the ages of 45 to 64 years old

He added: ‘Policymakers must take collective action to invest in equitable health care, education, and employment opportunities and challenge the systemic barriers that create and perpetuate these inequities so that all Americans can live long, healthy lives regardless of where they live and their race, ethnicity, or income.’

Additional results of the study showed white Americans living in northern areas had the fourth-highest life expectancy, at 76.7 years, while Latinos in the Southwest had the fifth-highest at 76 years.

And Black Americans in highly segregated cities had a life expectancy of 71.5 years on average.

The study is the second installment in the series, after the first was published in 2006 and split Americans into eight groups.

Over time, the latest study showed life expectancy increased in nine out of 10 Americas between 2000 and 2010.

Nationwide, America has a life expectancy of 77.5 years, according to the latest estimates from the CDC

But over the next decade it only increased in six out of 10 Americans, and at a much slower rate.

Black Americans showed the greatest increase in life expectancy over the study period, rising by as much as 3.7 years in that time — although improvements have stalled since 2019.

They have also risen from being the group with the lowest life expectancy in the nation.

Limitations of the study, the researchers acknowledged, include there were large disparities in life expectancy between people in each group in the study.

And the authors said there were considerable differences in life expectancy among counties, even for those with the same ethnic groups.