Life expectancy, by state

Life expectancy inched upward in 2022 after 2 years of decline during the pandemic. Life expectancy is lowest for Black and American Indian persons.

Life expectancy at birth by race/ethnicity, U.S.

Source: CDC. Notes: AN= Alaskan Native. Life expectancy at birth is the average number of years that a newborn would live if death patterns of the population at the time of their birth did not change during their lifetime. This means that any future changes to mortality rates would not be taken into account. Estimates for 2022 are provisional (p).

In 2020, as Covid ravaged the nation, Americans’ life expectancy, which is based on death patterns, dropped 1.8 years. Then, in 2021, while other wealthy nations were able to mitigate the impacts of Covid and their life expectancy increased, in the U.S. life expectancy fell another 0.6 years.^1,2 Based on provisional 2022 data, U.S. death rates have improved slightly and life expectancy has increased. Still, life expectancy — at 77.5 years — remains 1.3 years lower than 2019 pre-Covid.

As weather-related deaths and adverse pollution-related health impacts increase, climate change is anticipated to shorten life expectancy across the globe (Heat-related Deaths, Black Carbon). How we mitigate its impacts is crucial to preserving longevity. The Air Quality Life Index finds that the average person would have gained 2.25 years of life if air pollution globally was reduced to World Health Organization recommendations.^[3] A separate study from 2012 found that the reduction in air pollution in the U.S. from the previous decade was associated with an increase in life expectancy.^[4]

American Indian/Alaska Native populations have the lowest life expectancy in the U.S. at 67.9 years, followed by Black Americans at 72.8 years. Life expectancy for white Americans is on par with the (low) national average at 77.5 years. Hispanic Americans and Asian Americans have life expectancy of 80 years and 84.5 years respectively.

1. Masters, R. K., Aron, L. Y., & Woolf, S. H. (2022, April 5). CHANGES IN LIFE EXPECTANCY BETWEEN 2019 AND 2021 IN THE UNITED STATES AND 21 PEER COUNTRIES. MedRxiv. https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2022.04.05.22273393v4

2. Klobucista, C. (2022, September 8). U.S. Life Expectancy Is in Decline. Why Aren’t Other Countries Suffering the Same Problem? Council on Foreign Relations. https://www.cfr.org/in-brief/us-life-expectancy-decline-why-arent-other-countries-suffering-same-problem

3. The Air Quality Life Index (AQLI). (n.d.). AQLI. https://aqli.epic.uchicago.edu/the-index/ 

4. Correia, A. W., Pope, C. A., Dockery, D. W., Wang, Y., Ezzati, M., & Dominici, F. (2013). The Effect of Air Pollution Control on Life Expectancy in the United States: An Analysis of 545 US counties for the period 2000 to 2007. Epidemiology, 24(1), 23–31. https://doi.org/10.1097/ede.0b013e3182770237