Thursday, December 13, 2018

US Average Life Expectancy


Where you live can have a huge influence on how long you can expect to live. People who live in New York's Chinatown have a life expectancy of 93.6 years. However people who live in nearby Roosevelt Island have a life expectancy of just 59 years. You can discover the average life expectancy in your neighborhood on this new interactive map from Quartz.

Quartz's Life Expectancy Map reveals the average life expectancy in nearly every US neighborhood. The map uses data from the Center for Disease Control's U.S. Small-area Life Expectancy Estimates Project, which tracks life expectancy at the census tract level. If you hover over your neighborhood on Quartz's map you will discover the average life expectancy in your census tract and how that compares to the state and national average.

The average life expectancy in the USA is falling. Between 2016 and 2017, the average life expectancy in the US fell from 78.7 to 78.6 years. The CDC blames this fall on the large increase in drug overdoses and suicides. The UK is also now experiencing a similar fall in life expectancy, while not suffering from the same scale of deaths from opiate abuse as the USA. In both the US and the UK there is obviously growing health inequality, where those who who live in more economically deprived areas can not expect to live as long as their neighbors in wealthier neighborhoods.

1 comment:

Randal L. Schwartz said...

I believe the most significant contributor to life expectancy reduction is the "western diet", specifically the allowance of over 50g of carbohydrates per day as the accepted norm. We need to cut back on carbs!