New research from The Health Inequality Project
Does where you live affect how long you live? What is the relationship between income and life expectancy? New research from The Health Inequality Project explores the association between income and life expectancy in the U.S. using data from 2001-2014. In addition to exploring the relationship between higher income and increased longevity, the research goes beyond a national-scale analysis to assess ways in which socioeconomic factors at local levels may contribute to disparities in life expectancy between low- and high-income people.
The study groups individuals into four income quartiles to compare life expectancy with contributing factors across income groups, adjusting for race and ethnicity. At a national level, men in the top 1% of the income distribution live nearly 15 years longer than men in the bottom 1%; life expectancy for women in the top 1% of the income distribution is 10 years longer than the bottom 1%.
When looking at the local level where people live, the study finds little variation geographically amongst high-income individuals; longer life expectancy is generally consistent across the country. However, for lower-income individuals, place matters. For example, poor residents in New York City, have much higher life expectancies compared to those in the same income group living in Oklahoma City.
The research also explores how differences in life expectancy are related to factors such as health behaviors, health care, and social cohesion. For individuals in the lowest income quartile, life expectancy had significant positive correlations with the percentage of immigrants in the area, median home value, local government expenditure per capita, population density, and the percentage of college graduates in the area. Life expectancy had significant negative correlations with smoking and obesity, i.e. the more individuals smoked, the lower their life expectancy.
The Health Inequality Project study has received coverage by many national media outlets; here, ARC analyzes the data to take a closer look at health inequality trends in the 20-county metro Atlanta region.
On average, a wealthier resident (top income quartile) in metro Atlanta will live 6.5 years longer than would a poor resident (bottom income quartile). When comparing this life expectancy gap by county, we see that Barrow, Newton, and Fulton counties have the biggest disparities. Gwinnett, Forsyth, Rockdale, and Clayton have the smallest gaps. As established in the national study, where you live matters for poor Atlanta residents, too.
A poor resident in DeKalb County has a life expectancy of 81.2, 3.2 years longer than a resident of similar income living in Paulding County. Women have longer life expectancies than men; women in the lowest income quartile have the longest life expectancy in DeKalb County (83.95) and the lowest in Douglas County (80.77) while poor men have the longest life expectancy in DeKalb County (78.38) and the lowest in Paulding County (74.34).
