Nobody wants to hear that their state is among the 10 states with shortest life expectancy, but someone of you will have to if you choose to look at our list at the bottom of this article. Please don’t worry if your state is there because that doesn’t necessarily mean that you are going to live that much. You should know that when said “life expectancy” it is usually meant “life expectancy at birth”, and since we are providing you with statistical estimates in 2013-2014, they couldn’t apply to you; since they are applicable only to people who were born in 2013 or 2014, and we reasonably doubt that some of them could even read by now. So, it is entirely possible that, even if your state is in the list of 10 states with shortest life expectancy, you could live much longer than the stated average for your state. On the other hand, it is also conceivable that you could live shorter than the stated average.
Do you know how does the entire US rank among other countries in the world by life expectancy? How big is the gap between the states with the highest and the states with lowest life expectancy? According to the CIA’s World Factbook, the US is in 42nd place, by longest life expectancy at birth, among 224 countries overall. That means that the entire US, with the average life expectancy of 79.56 years, doesn’t have that short life expectancy overall. So, what do you think, how much could differ life expectancy from state to state? Very much – the state with longest life expectancy, Hawaii, has the average of 81.3 years, while the state with shortest life expectancy has the average of 75.0 years. It seems that the difference is 6.3 years. Although this number doesn’t seem that big at first glance, when you think of shortening your life for 6.3 years it gets kind of bigger, don’t you think? But, all this is nothing comparing to the country in the world that has the lowest life expectancy, and that country is Chad, with average life expectancy of only 49.44 years. And if we choose to look at the even bigger picture and get back in the New Stone Age where the average life expectancy was only around 20 years, then Chad’s stats don’t seem that bad. But, who wants to look at the bigger picture and get back in the past when their life is at stake? No one.
Are you interested to find out what’s on the other side of the road – which are the countries with the longest life expectancy in the world, and how do their stats compare with the average life length in the US? Then, look at our list – Country-by-Country Life Expectancy: The World’s 15 Healthiest Countries. Also don’t forget to check out our article about the 10 most beautiful states in the US.
And the most important question is – why is there such a difference in life expectancy between the states? What are the main factors that affect life expectancy? There are many factors that affect average life expectancy in every state and every country in the world. Healthcare, lifestyle, a healthy diet and exercising play a great role. But, be aware of the fact that everything counts when calculating average life expectancy, even the deaths of young people who lost their life in environmental disasters, traffic accidents, but also murders and suicides. So, it’s not just the lifestyle, disease and genetics that count – everything counts. The Measure of America uses mortality data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Center for Health Statistics, and population data to calculate average life expectancy in every state. You will notice that some states have a tie, but that’s only because these are rounded numbers and ranking is made according to the original calculates and not these rounded values. Without further ado, we present to you the list of 10 states with shortest life expectancy in the US:
10. Georgia
The average life expectancy at birth: 77.2
