Researchers have long said that good health and life expectancy can be heavily influenced by where you live. Now, new insight shows that living in Florida can lengthen your life expectancy.
An Associated Press analysis using new data from the National Center for Health Statistics shows just how much your local environment and neighborhood can impact the length of your life. The analysis said the United States has seen life expectancy decrease from 78.7 years in 2015 to 78.6 years in 2017. Experts say opioid addiction and an increase in suicides are the main reasons for the increase.
Fearrington Village, a neighborhood in North Carolina, has a life expectancy of 97.5 years for a child born between 2010 and 2015. Its the highest life expectancy for any neighborhood in the U.S.
Hawaii surpassed all other states with a life expectancy of 82 years. Florida also ranked near the top with an overall life expectancy of 80.1 years.
The state with the lowest life expectancy: Mississippi with 74.9 years. It's followed closely by West Virginia, Alabama, Oklahoma and Kentucky.
The Associated Press said the data is part of a partnership between the National Center for Health Statistics, The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, The National Association for Public Health Statistics and Information Systems and the National Center for Health Statistics.
More than 65,000 geographic regions in the country were analyzed by life expectancy and demographics to paint a picture of how neighborhoods and environment contribute to health and longevity.
Not surprisingly, states at the top of the life expectancy list -- like Florida -- have plenty of beaches.
A study published earlier in 2018 in the Journal of the American Medical Association had a similar ranking of states by life expectancy. Minnesota topped that list with 78.7 years instead of Hawaii with 78.4 years.
Florida ranked 21st on the JAMA list with 77 years. Mississippi was still last with 71.8 years.
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