Washington's Life Expectancy One Of The Longest In America: CDC

SEATTLE — When you live in Washington, you're here for a nice, long time. At least according to the CDC, whose recent study found the Evergreen State had one of the longest life expectancies in the nation.

The study, which looked at the average U.S. life expectancy at birth in 2019, found the nationwide average was 78.8 years, up 0.1 percent from 2018. To determine life expectancy, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention study used death records in U.S. states, as analyzed by the National Center for Health Statistics.

Washingtonians, however, lived an average of 80 years — 82.1 years for women and 77.9 years for men. Our neighbors in the Pacific Northwest share in our good health: Oregon's overall life expectancy was 79.6 years, and Idaho had 79.5.

In Mississippi, ranked 51st among states and the District of Columbia, the average life expectancy was 74.4 years — 77.6 years for women and 71.2 years for men.

Importantly, the report released Thursday does not reflect COVID-19 mortality rates, which CDC officials said in December cut life expectancy by nearly two years, the largest one-year drop since World War II.

States with the lowest life expectancy at birth are mostly Southern states, and states with the highest life expectancy at birth are predominantly Western and Northeastern states, the report said.

The report didn’t address the disparities, but report author Dr. Elizabeth Arias, the director of U.S. Life Tables at the National Center for Health Statistics, offered some theories in an interview with ABC News.

“Well, we do know that mortality from the leading causes of death like heart disease, cancer, stroke, accidents, tends to be higher in the states in the South and the Southeast than in New England, for instance, and the Western states,” she said. “Smoking prevalence is also higher in the Southern states. I believe there are also higher rates of poverty throughout [the South].”

California, New York, Minnesota and Massachusetts, respectively, rounded out the top five states for life expectancy. Washington ranked not far behind, coming in as the 8th longest-lived state.

Other states in the bottom ranking were West Virginia, Alabama, Kentucky and Tennessee.

Nationally, women live 5.1 years longer than men. The disparity is greater in Mississippi than anywhere else in the United States at 6.4 years, and the shortest is in Utah at 3.5 years. Women outlive men in all 50 states and the District of Columbia.

California, which ranks No. 2 in life expectancy overall, ranked first for men, with a life expectancy of 78.4 years. Conversely, West Virginia ranked 51st among women, with a life expectancy at birth of 77.3 years.

The report didn’t address the disparities in life expectancies between men and women. However, Arias told ABC News smoking is likely the primary reason. Historical data shows the disparity between the sexes was as high as 7.8 years in 1978, Arias said.

“So, males took up smoking a lot earlier than females did and with much higher prevalence,” she said. “But then, over the decades, females began to smoke close to levels that men smoked. And, as men have been quitting, women have followed but not at the same pace."

Researchers also looked at life expectancy after age 65. In Hawaii, people who are 65 years old can expect to live another 21.2 years on average. In Mississippi, they can expect to live another 17.5 years. 65-year-old Washingtonians have on average another 19.8 years to live.

Other findings from the report:

• Life expectancy declined in 14 states between 2018 and 2019, ranging from one month to six months. Those states were South Dakota, North Dakota, Wyoming, Rhode Island, New Mexico, Arkansas, Maine, Montana, Iowa, Mississippi, Connecticut, Oregon, Hawaii and Minnesota.
• Five states had no change in life expectancy, and 31 states and the District of Columbia saw increases in life expectancy between one and six months.

The preliminary 2020 mortality data released early last year showed COVID-19 cut life expectancy by 1.8 years in 2020, and that people of color were disproportionately affected.

“We normally don’t see declines of life expectancy of this magnitude,” Bob Anderson, chief of mortality statistics at the National Center for Health Statistics, told NBC News in December. “Usually when we see fluctuations in life expectancy, it’s only for a couple months of the year, so this is quite significant.”

Overall, the life expectancy at birth was 77 years in 2020 — 74.2 years for males and 79.9 for females, according to the December report.

Dr. Steven Woolf, director emeritus of the Center on Society and Health at the Center on Society and Health at Virginia Commonwealth University, told NBC at the time “one of the most jolting things in the report is the racial disparities.”

Death rates for Black and Hispanic Americans increased precipitously in 2020 — 43 percent and 32 percent for Hispanic males and females, respectively, and 28 percent and 25 percent for Black males and females, respectively.

That compares with an increase in death rates of 13 percent for white men and 12 percent for white women.

“That just shouldn’t be happening,” Woolf told NBC News. “There is this deeply embedded health consequence of systemic racism.”