If you are poor, a minority, and live in South or West America, you are likely to die 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 past two decades.
It showed that the gap between the longest-lived and shortest-lived groups had grown by around 7.5 years in just 20 years – compared to a gap of 12.5 years in 2000.
Nationally, 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 leveling off across the country and then falling during the Covid pandemic before recovering slightly.
Native Americans in the West lived the shortest overall, with an average life expectancy of 63.6 years in 2021.
Those who were black, poor and living in rural areas of 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 who did not live in the South had the second highest life expectancy at 79.4 years, and Americans in predominantly white counties had the third highest life expectancy : 77.2 years.
The chart above shows US life expectancy by year from 1980 to 2022. There has been a slight increase in the most recent year data is available
For the studyUsing data from the National Vital Statistics System and population estimates from the National Center for Health Statistics, researchers split the US into what they called the “10” Americas – based on geography, income and ethnicity.
They consisted of counties with minority Asian and Indigenous or Pacific Islander (AIAN) populations; Latinos spread across the country and to those living in the western and southern US; counties that are predominantly white, white rural counties, and white people in low-income counties.
Among others were African Americans across the country, in rural counties and in segregated cities; and AIAN people in the central and western US.
The researchers blame the large gap in life expectancy on the distribution of resources, discrimination in society and barriers to access to education and health care.
Senior author Dr Christopher Murray, a demographer at the University of Washington, Seattle, said: ‘The scale and magnitude of health disparities in American society are truly alarming in a country with the wealth and resources of the US.
“These disparities reflect the unequal and inequitable distribution of resources and opportunities that have profound effects on well-being and longevity, especially in marginalized populations. ‘
The graph above shows life expectancy since 2000 in the ten groups created by the study
The above shows the life expectancy of men and women aged 45 to 64 years
He added: “Policymakers must take collective action to invest in equitable health care, education and employment and challenge the systemic barriers that create and perpetuate these inequities so that all Americans can live long, healthy lives, no matter where they live.” where they live and what their race is. , ethnicity or income.’
Additional results from the study found that 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 life expectancy at 76 years.
And black Americans in highly segregated cities had an average life expectancy of 71.5 years.
The study is the second part in the series, after the first was published in 2006 divided the Americans into eight groups.
The latest research shows that life expectancy increased in nine out of 10 Americas between 2000 and 2010.
Nationally, 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 in 10 Americans, and at a much slower rate.
Black Americans showed the largest increases in life expectancy during the study period, up a whopping 3.7 years over that time — although improvements have stalled since 2019.
They have also risen from being the group with the lowest life expectancy in the country.
Limitations of the study, the researchers acknowledged, include that there were large differences in life expectancy between people in each group in the study.
And the authors said there were significant differences in life expectancy between provinces, even for people from the same ethnic groups.