Why life expectancy varies widely across the U.S. especially for women, new study reveals

A Yale study shows that despite medical advancements, life expectancy in some states, especially in the South, hasn't improved much in 100 years, particularly for women.

How long you live depends on where you live, new research suggests.

Americans’ life expectancy increased throughout the 20th century, although in some states, particularly in the South, people aren’t living much longer than they were 100 years ago. It’s worse among women.

Researchers at the Yale School of Public Health analyzed the death data of 77 million women and 102 million men born from 1900 through 2000. The findings, published Monday in the journal JAMA Network Open, showed that nationwide life expectancy for women increased from 73.8 to 84.1 in that time frame, while it jumped from 62.8 to 80.3 for men.

Scientists and health officials calculate life expectancy at birth as a way of understanding a country’s health over time. How long people in the United States lived since the last century varied drastically by state.

“What was surprising to me was that for some states, especially for women, there’s basically no change,” said study co-author Theodore Holford, a senior research scientist in biostatistics at Yale University. “Over 100 years, in some of these Southern states, they improved less than two years in the framework of all of the medical advances that we have seen during the 20th century.”

https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/why-life-expectancy-varies-us-women-study-rcna203396

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