A massive disparity has opened up in life-expectancy within the U.S., with southern states like Mississippi and Alabama falling far behind their peers in the northeast and out west.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) published a report Thursday on life-expectancy in the U.S. and each individual state from 2019 - the most recent full data set available. This would be the final year before the COVID-19 pandemic, which drastically shifted American life-expectancies starting in 2020.
Overall, Americans are expected to live 78.8 years, with women living five years longer than men on average, averaging 81.4 years of life compared to their male peers that live an average of 76.3 years.
Mississippi has the lowest life-expectancy of any U.S. state, with the average person born in the state expected to live 74.4 years. The burden is especially low for men born in the Magnolia state, who only live 71.2 years on average.
The report highlights how poverty, especially in the south, can have harmful effects upon a person's quality of life. Mississippi has the highest poverty rate per any U.S. state, with one out of five residents being impoverished, with states like Alabama and West Virginia also finding themselves among those with the lowest life-expectancies and highest poverty rates.
A CDC report published this week finds that southern states with high poverty rates like Mississippi, West Virginia, Alabama, and Kentucky have the worst life-expectancies. Western and northeastern states like Hawaii, California and New York have the longers
Life-expectancy decreased from 2018 to 2019 in 14 states, with the largest drops in North Dakota and South Dakota. Vermont and Idaho had the largest increases in life-expectancy that year
Hawaii and California have the longest life expectancies in the U.S., with those born in either state expected to live 80.9 years. Hawaiian women live the longest lives in America, averaging 83.9 years of life.
Each of the nine states with the
