The majority of U.S. states with the lowest life expectancies in 2019 were in the South, according to a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report published Thursday.
The report, from the CDC's National Center for Health Statistics, ranked all 50 states and Washington, D.C., in order of residents' life expectancies in the year before the pandemic took hold. The results showed that Mississippi had the country's lowest life expectancy, at 74.4 years, which was significantly below the national average of 78.8. Hawaii, meanwhile, had the highest: 80.9 years.
After Mississippi, West Virginia, Alabama, Kentucky, Tennessee, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Louisiana, South Carolina and Ohio had the lowest life expectancies. All were below the national average.
While the report did not touch on poverty levels, Mississippi also had the greatest share of people — 19.5 percent — living below the poverty line in 2019, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
Similarly, other states with low life expectancies had high shares of residents under the poverty line. Louisiana, West Virginia, Kentucky, Arkansas, Alabama, Oklahoma, Tennessee and South Carolina all had more than 13.5 percent of the population below that line in 2019.
"When you look at the map of life expectancy, and if you were to look at a map of socioeconomic status — which includes poverty, education attainment — you would see that they would look very similar," said Elizabeth Arias, the lead author of the new report.
"Mortality from the leading causes of death are higher in those areas — heart disease, cancer, stroke," Arias added.
Research on life expectancies at the neighborhood level has revealed similar trends, she said.
"Life expectancy really correlated with the socioeconomic status of the population in the area," Arias said. "Really well-to-do areas had really high life expectancies."
Nine percent of Hawaii residents lived below the poverty line in 2019.
After Hawaii, the states with the highest life expectancies in 2019 were California, New York, Minnesota, Massachusetts, Connecticut, New Jersey, Washington state, Colorado and Vermont.
The new report also found that life expectancy was higher for women in all states and Washington, D.C.
"The difference in life expectancy between females and males ranged from 3.5 years in Utah to 6.4 years in Mississippi," the report said.