Study Finds Wide Life-Expectancy Gap

WASHINGTON — Men in a swath of South Dakota and those in Baltimore and Washington live about as long as men in such developing countries as India and Bolivia, a Harvard scientist reported Wednesday.

Emphasizing stark differences within the United States, Dr. Christopher Murray also said women in some counties die around age 83, while men in a south-central portion of South Dakota that contains two Indian reservations have life expectancies of only 61 years.

Also, male Indians living in the worst South Dakota counties had a life expectancy of just 56.5 years and black men living in the nation’s capital got only 57.9 years, as low as in parts of Africa. Yet male Asians living in affluent counties in New York and Massachusetts lived to be 89.5 and Asian women in those places live into their mid-90s.

The vast differences in Americans’ life expectancy is the sort found between poverty-ridden Sierra Leone and wealthy Japan, not the type predicted within the United States, Murray told a scientific meeting organized by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

“That’s an absolutely staggering range,” Murray said. What’s going on in the low-life-expectancy counties “is obviously the $64,000 question.”

“The size of the discrepancy was the big surprise,” agreed Dr. James Marks, director of CDC’s National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention. “The findings have tremendous implications.” He said the CDC will study how to improve the lower-life-expectancy counties.

In 1990, women lived longest in Stearns County, Minn., about 83 years. Men lived longest in Utah’s Cache and Rich counties, about 77 years.

The worst counties were five neighbors in South Dakota: Bennett, Jackson, Mellette, Shannon and Todd, where life expectancy for men was 61 years and that for women was 70 years.

In Washington, men’s life expectancy was 62.2 years, women’s 73.9 years. In Baltimore, men’s life expectancy was 63 years and women’s 73.2.

The 10 unhealthiest areas were in inner cities and the South and on Indian reservations.

The swath in South Dakota, for instance, encompasses two Sioux reservations that have reported a high incidence of diabetes and alcoholism. Shannon County, the poorest county on the list, has a median income of $11,000--almost $20,000 less than the national annual median. And 41% of residents receive welfare, versus just 4.4% of people in Minnesota’s long-living Stearns County.

Murray found that high-income whites lived only about two years longer than poor whites. Income made a little more difference among blacks. But among Indians, the richest could hit age 90 whereas the poorest died around 65, Murray said.

Still, income isn’t the only culprit, Murray said.

“Even if you took all of Europe, you would not find this variation,” he said.