Monday, September 06, 2021

The Life Expectancy Map

People in Mississippi on average die six years younger than people in California. Mississippi has the worst average life expectancy of any state. At birth a Mississippian can expect to live on average 74.9 years. The average Californian can expect 81.3 years on Earth.

The CDC's Life Expectancy at Birth interactive map shows you how long (on average) people in your neighborhood will live. The map reveals that there can be huge differences in life expectancy even between neighborhoods in the same city. 

I can think of a couple of reasons why some neighborhoods might have significantly lower life expectancy than others. For example you could compare life expectancy in your city with CNN's dot map of Race and Ethnicity Across the US. The two maps on this post show roughly the same area of Upper East Side and Harlem in New York City. The blue color on the top map shows areas with the highest life expectancy. Blue on the bottom map equals white people. Red on the top map equals lower life expectancy. Red on the bottom map equates to the Black and Hispanic population.

Perhaps not surprisingly you can also find similar correlations between levels of income and life expectancy in many U.S. cities. You can compare for yourself the CDC's Life Expectancy map with Esri's Predominant Income Range by Households map, which shows how much money people are earning in each census tract in the United States.

Life expectancy in the UK and the USA is falling, bucking a century long trend of people living longer lives. You can read more about falling life expectancy on this Why Are We  Dying Younger post.

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