Life Expectancy: Factors That Influence How Long We Live

Life expectancy is the average number of years a person is expected to live. This average varies considerably based on a person's birth year, state of health, and location.

The most recent estimates from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention indicate that the average life expectancy in the United States is about 76 years. This number is representative of the overall U.S. Population.

Access to health care, diet, income, and even the ZIP code you live in all factor heavily in determining the impact of this number. These factors can make huge differences.

As policymakers know, big cities like San Francisco, New York, and Seattle tend to have above-average life expectancies compared to rural areas.

By tracking life expectancy, public health practitioners and policymakers can identify disparities, target objectives and resources, and better prepare for changing long-term care needs. The following sections explain what drives these figures and what they spell for Americans.

Key Takeaways

• Life expectancy in the United States is an essential indicator of U.S. national health trends. It uncovers glaring inequities between states and communities, driven by access to healthcare, socioeconomic factors, and environmental conditions.
• The recent erosion of American life expectancy exposes the human toll of public health catastrophes, such as the COVID-19 pandemic. These sudden declines highlight an urgent need for strong healthcare systems and preventive approaches.
• Lifestyle choices, including diet, exercise, and avoiding tobacco and excessive alcohol, play a critical role in individual longevity and can offset some genetic risks.
• Where you live in this country should not determine how healthy you are — yet it does. Differences in quality of care, environmental exposures, and social determinants of health contribute to this, underscoring the need for better local resources and policy interventions.
• Mental well-being and social support are increasingly recognized as contributing factors to living longer, healthier lives. More professionals call for integrated, holistic approaches that treat people’s physical and mental health together.
• Read up and take small steps toward a healthier life! You can’t stop there — engage actively with healthcare providers and community networks to empower yourself and improve your life expectancy, even if statistical averages continue declining.

What Is Life Expectancy?

Life expectancy is the average number of additional years a person is expected to live, beginning at a given age. These life expectancy estimates are indexed to the year of birth and the individual’s age at death, considering variables such as gender.

It assists public health professionals, government leaders, and private industries in understanding the average longevity of people in a given population. Using this single number, planners can identify disparities in health and monitor life span equality. Beyond helping address immediate requirements, they can forecast future needs and track progress toward long-term goals.

Life expectancy is interdisciplinary and relevant to actuarial science, demography, and economics. It provides a perspective on aging or senescence and is often utilized in research addressing population longevity and mortality rates.

There are two main kinds: life expectancy at birth and remaining life expectancy. The most commonly used is life expectancy at birth, which represents the number of years a newborn could expect to live if current mortality rates persist.

This number can be susceptible to an increase in deaths of younger children, such as in countries with a high under-five mortality rate. In earlier centuries, life expectancy at birth in England increased from around 25 to over 40 years. Once someone reaches age 30, their life expectancy increases by 20-30 more years.

Remaining life expectancy is an update on the original number for those who have survived specific risks, such as childhood. Life expectancy is not constant, but varies over time and between different locations.

In prehistoric times, it was only 22–33 years, but today, it is over 70 years in much of the world. In 2005, life expectancy at birth for women in the U.S. was 80.1 years. The gender gap, which favors women, has been closing for decades.

Genes account for less than 10% of these changes, with nearly the rest attributable to environmental changes. The upper limit of human life is roughly 125 years, although some studies claim it may be higher with new science.

What Defines "Age" Exactly?

When individuals refer to age, they typically mean chronological age. It’s just the total amount of time, in years, from the day you were born to the present day. In the US—and most built environments worldwide—this number increases by one each year. Life expectancy, social participation, and psychological well-being all improve when people age better.

At other times, age is measured in months, weeks, or even days. For instance, you would never say your baby is “one,” but you’d say your baby is “16 months old.” Tools such as the DATEDIF function in spreadsheet software help to disaggregate age into years, months, or days. However, it’s essential to recognize that leap years—years with 366 days—have to be counted correctly, otherwise the math will not add up correctly.

Some go so far as to employ running age, or the year they aim for, not the one they have completed.

Biological age is a different animal altogether. It focuses on how your body functions, rather than how many years you’ve been alive as measured by the number of candles on your birthday cake. Things like gray hair, wrinkles, and changes in immune cells, like CD4 and CD8 memory T cells, can hint at your biological age.

The epigenetic clock remains a valuable tool. It can guess your age from your DNA more accurately than the arithmetic on your birth certificate. These markers are crucial for testing new interventions that aim to increase lifespan and promote healthy aging.

Culture and context play a massive role in what age means. In many cultures, old age is equated with wisdom. In others, concern centers on one’s ability to work or maintain legal rights. While laws may establish 18 as the beginning of adulthood, medical professionals consider age when determining care plans.

Social attitudes evolve as more individuals reach the age of 60. In fact, by 2050, there will be more older adults than children in the United States. Gerontology and industries like AgeTech fulfill these desires, associating old age with technology, care, and alternative lifestyles.

U.S. Longevity: The Current Picture

Life expectancy has always been an important measure of our nation’s health. It is responsive to factors like biology, the environment, and public health policy. In the U.S., according to recent data released in 2023, life expectancy at birth has finally rebounded to 78.4 years. That’s a full 0.9 years better than 2022!

This increase is primarily attributed to the reduction of deaths due to COVID-19. Yet, the life expectancy in the U.S. is still 4.1 years shorter than in peer-wealth nations. Heart disease, overdoses, firearm violence, and car crashes are still spreading this gap further.

The gender gap is clear: men in the U.S. Live, on average, 3.4 years less than women, and the gap is bigger than in many peer countries. Between 2022 and 2023, life expectancy for U.S. Men increased by an entire year! By comparison, peer countries saw an increase of just 0.3 years.

Recent Trends in America

This reflects a significant recent decline in life expectancy, mainly attributable to the COVID-19 pandemic. From 2019 to 2021, these figures fell off a cliff. This sudden change during the pandemic exposed clear vulnerabilities in our public health systems, from healthcare access disparities to a lack of health literacy.

The 2023 provisional life expectancy has returned to near 2019 levels, but the rate of increase is considerably lower than the rate during the decades before the pandemic.

Stark Gaps Across States

State	Life Expectancy at Birth (2023)
Hawaii	81.7
California	81.0
New York	80.2
Alabama	74.6
Mississippi	73.8

States such as Hawaii and California come out on top, while Alabama and Mississippi fall to the bottom. These disparities are due to systemic inequities in healthcare, social determinants of health, and income inequality.

We know that people live longer in states with greater access to care, more educated populations, and more resources.

How We Compare Globally

The picture isn’t great—the U.S. Now ranks last in life expectancy among all high-income countries. Countries such as Japan and Switzerland lead the US by seven or more years.

While most of our peer nations have made continuous progress, the U.S. has made little to no gains. This gap underscores the need for better public health, more equitable healthcare, and efforts to address deaths of despair.

What Shapes Your Lifespan?

Life expectancy is determined by a complicated tapestry of factors—mainly influenced by our environment—that extend well beyond our DNA. For most of the past century, everyone has lived longer, healthier lives. This improvement can be attributed to public health advances, improved nutrition, and better medical care.

The narrative is not so straightforward. It’s more than our choices, food, lifestyle, and behavior changes.

1. Daily Habits: Diet, Exercise, Vices

Diet and exercise: Daily habits profoundly affect how long we live. From smoking to drinking to exercising or lack thereof, our daily habits are another significant factor contributing to our longevity. A healthy diet and physical activity prevent heart disease and diabetes.

While caloric restriction is a frequent practice for weight maintenance or diabetes management, it poses dangers when extreme, including malnourishment. The promise of calorie restriction as an anti-aging method for humans is unknown, but animal studies indicate some benefit.

Both smoking and heavy drinking significantly reduce life expectancy, the benefits of sleep, and social connections. Good sleep and strong social ties contribute too, as loneliness and poor sleep increase the risk of early death.

2. Your Zip Code's Impact

Your Zip Code’s Impact: Where you live can make the difference between life and death. Access to the nearest clinic, grocery store, and safe places to walk or jog differs significantly from one neighborhood to the next.

We find that developing poor communities experience greater rates of infant mortality and less access to clean water or vaccines. Social determinants, such as high crime or low access to green space, accumulate over one’s lifetime.

3. Healthcare: Access and Quality

Having quality care close to home is essential. Preventive care for mothers and babies reduces infant mortality. Equitable access to disease screenings, vaccines, and advanced treatments fights disease and prolongs life.

These unequal systems often result in gaps in health and expected lifespan.

4. Our Environment's Hidden Costs

Overcrowding, air and water pollution, and exposure to toxins increase health risks. A lack of parks or green spaces also affects mental and physical health.

When everyone has clean air, safe water, and green neighborhoods to live in, people prosper.

5. Mental Wellness: A Key Factor

Good mental health is vital to living a longer life. When social connections are lacking and stress and depression are allowed to take control, lives are lost.

Providing mental health support—by fostering community, love, and understanding—is equally essential as curing physical disease.

My View: Beyond Averages

When discussing life expectancy, averages tend to get the most attention. These simple average values obscure much more than they reveal. The real story is still under wraps. In a city like San Francisco, tech jobs, lack of racial diversity, and the resulting housing crisis each play a role in determining life expectancy.

Demography is an excellent tool for unraveling these disparities. It provides us with unique tools to study combinations of age, gender, ethnicity, and health histories. To understand how long and how well we live, we need to zoom in—beyond averages.

Averages Don't Tell All

For those who fall outside the average, averages obscure and erase their lived experiences. For marginalized groups—those experiencing the impacts of poverty, racial discrimination, or barriers to adequate healthcare—life expectancies can be much lower.

Analyzing data, such as life tables disaggregated by ethnic group, income level, or ZIP code, reveals the true disparities. A cohort life table shows one way that lower-income neighborhoods face greater rates of chronic illness. It also illustrates the greater risk of dying young in those places.

In practice, this approach demonstrates why looking beyond averages is critical. It allows us to visualize health inequities in new ways and formulate more insightful questions about their causes.

Community: An Untapped Resource

Community conditions influence health in profound, often unseen, ways. Individuals with strong social connections tend to live longer and healthier lives. These community-based efforts, whether neighborhood wellness clinics or senior meal congregates, demonstrate that belonging to a greater network, an ecosystem, makes a difference.

Social capital demonstrates that when communities care for each other, pool their resources, and lift one another, we are all lifted by those efforts. These types of bonds can go a long way toward increasing life expectancy and health span.

Our Shared Health Journey

Creating equitable opportunities to be healthy is a team sport. It’s only when we work together—when neighbors, doctors, and city leaders unite—that real change occurs. Hearing one another’s stories and receiving support encourages individuals to overcome obstacles and build healthier lifestyles.

When we all work together, we all improve the community.

Future of American Longevity

There are a lot of moving parts that influence how Americans prolong the lives of individuals. Such barriers include new health systems, policies, practices, habits, and technology. After decades of steady gains, U.S. Life expectancy dropped from 79.7 years in 2017 to 76.1 years in 2021, falling behind peers like Japan or Switzerland.

Increasing mortality and inequities in health care reveal an uncertain journey ahead. Modest shifts in life expectancy can result in millions more living to old age. With specific actions taken, by 2050, all Americans may benefit from living longer lives. This only works if care is equitable and new advancements are widely shared.

Tech: Boon or Burden?

Technology has always been a double-edged sword when it comes to health. Tools like telemedicine and health apps make it easier for people to see a doctor or track wellness, even in small towns or busy cities.

These apps can assist people in identifying issues sooner or maintaining adherence to treatment regimens. However, too much screen time and endless hours sitting behind a desk can increase health hazards.

As we add more devices, we are adding more opportunities to sit, and research connects prolonged sitting to increased rates of diabetes and heart disease. Tech may bring care closer, but it also brings new health habits worth monitoring.

Policy Changes for Longer Lives

Better policies are needed if we want more people to live longer. Increasing funding for preventive care is a good first step.

Fostering health equity and ensuring everyone gets high-quality care will determine the extent to which future gains are made. Everyone benefits when decision-makers invest in vaccines, clean air, or healthy food rather than more expensive healthcare.

Policies that promote equitable access, regardless of zip code, can reduce disparities in who lives the longest.

Genes Aren't Your Full Story

Sure, genes play a role, but lifestyle has a bigger impact. Eating a healthy diet, exercising regularly, and stopping smoking can help counter some inherited risks.

Though some traits are determined at conception, genes are less important than your daily choices. Focusing on small, sustainable habits creates the foundation for a healthier, longer life.

Understanding Longevity Data Limits

Life expectancy data provides an important window into how our public health system has developed and changed. However, the picture begins to crack when we examine life expectancy trends. Most other historical sources, including the World Bank Group’s 2022 World Development Report, indicate consistent increases since at least 1800.

Yet, the maximum lifespan has not changed at all. Take, for instance, the year 1800, when no country had a life expectancy higher than 40 years. Today, some countries reach over 80, but this increase mainly reflects fewer deaths in childhood and better living conditions, not a real jump in how long people can live. This illustrates the life expectancy gap that still exists across different regions.

The concept of radical life extension has significant challenges. After all, even in the longest-lived and most populous places, only 5.1% of females and 1.8% of males make it to age 100. To raise life expectancy at birth to 110 years, roughly 70% of women would have to make it beyond 100.

Unfortunately, the data doesn’t indicate that this is about to change anytime soon. Since 1990, death rates for people over 65 have not decreased sufficiently to have a meaningful impact. Research estimates that to achieve meaningful effects, we would require a reduction in mortality rates of 88% at least through age 150.

These numbers don’t tell the whole story. Data quality is inconsistent across regions and years: disease rates, health care access, and genetic predisposition affect overall life expectancy.

Take the DNA damage theory: People who repair DNA better, like many centenarians, tend to live longer. Connecting genes, stress responses such as hormesis, and the phenomenon of living longer is intricate and remains a topic of exploration. Comparing countries is difficult, too, with gaps in reporting and distinct methodologies.

Boost Your Longevity

Longevity is influenced by more than just your genes or good luck; it also involves life expectancy trends shaped by various factors. In Glasgow, total life expectancy is notably lower than in most of the UK and Europe, revealing a vast difference in health outcomes. Not even the wealthiest 10% of the city’s residents enjoy lifespans comparable to their peers in other regions. This gap reflects deeper issues—historic housing, social and environmental aspects, and economic growth, rather than merely low income.

Current mortality rates worldwide stand at 7.7 deaths per 1,000 people (CIA, 2020), while survey respondents express a desire to live an average of 88.9 years. This underscores the importance of addressing life expectancy estimates through meaningful action. Research since 1990 indicates that few countries have achieved even a three-year per decade increase in life expectancy, highlighting the necessity for small, sustainable steps.

Make Small Changes Now

Making these small, positive changes a little at a time, every day, can make a big difference in creating a lifetime of good health. Glasgow residents, get ready to walk in your beautiful parks! Change to a plant-based Mediterranean-style diet or choose water rather than sugary beverages—easy to do.

A recent study found that women adhering closest to this diet were 23% less likely to die from any cause. Begin modestly to make these practices simpler to maintain. Replace a serving of red meat with a serving of fish, or walk up the stairs instead of taking the elevator!

Small changes add up over time and reduce the risk of chronic disease. They are keeping people more active, even though the number of years living with ill health increased from 8.2 to 9.3 worldwide between 1990 and 2016.

Be Your Health Advocate

Being an expert in your well-being is by far the best defense. Routine visits, blood pressure monitoring, and screenings for cardiovascular disease and diabetes help identify issues early on. Patients who are active and engaged in conversations with their physicians, ask questions, and maintain organized records receive higher-quality care.

In the long run, this proactive approach helps identify problems associated with Glasgow’s health hazards, such as chronic environmental exposures.

Lean on Your Community

Your support has had a real impact. Community programs, local health coalitions, and peer support keep individuals accountable and engaged. Connecting with other people—in person via neighborhood walking clubs, health education community events, or virtual groups—provides accountability and community shared resources.

Strengthening these connections has the potential to address Glasgow’s life expectancy divide. This is partly because social support fosters healthier habits and reduces loneliness.

Conclusion

U.S. Life expectancy provides a fascinating glimpse into how we live, work, and care for one another. That’s because medical know-how and the healthy lifestyles of residents raise the averages. Gaps remain, influenced by your neighborhood, occupation, and ability to access high-quality care. Data doesn’t capture the whole story. After all, tides ebb and flow, and each of us has a unique journey. Ultimately, the little things make the difference – sleeping well, eating whole food, staying physically active, and cultivating meaningful connections. Those stack up over a few years. Looking to learn more about this topic? Read others’ research or trade experiences with people in your network. The road to a longer, healthier life lies in the choices we make every day and the wisdom we pass on to each other. Keep exploring, keep inquiring, keep spreading the word.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is life expectancy?

Life expectancy is the average number of years a person can expect to live, and it serves as a disturbing barometer of current health conditions and life expectancy trends in the United States.

How does the U.S. compare globally in life expectancy?

The U.S. is falling behind on life expectancy trends compared to other high-income countries, with chronic health conditions and lifestyle factors contributing to vast differences in overall life expectancy.

What affects my lifespan the most?

Genetics, lifestyle choices, diet, and exercise habits significantly influence total life expectancy, as does access to healthcare.

Can life expectancy predictions be trusted?

Life expectancy estimates are just projections based on large groups. While they don’t predict individual outcomes, they are handy for spotting the general trends in the population's health and overall life expectancy.

How can I increase my life expectancy?

Adopting a healthy diet, engaging in regular exercise, avoiding smoking, reducing alcohol intake, and visiting your doctor for checkups can significantly influence your life expectancy, potentially adding over a decade to your lifespan.

Why does life expectancy differ by region in the U.S.?

Access to healthcare, income levels, environment, and education can significantly influence life expectancy and impact expectancy gaps between neighboring states or municipalities.

What is the future outlook for American longevity?

Experts expect total life expectancy in the U.S. to increase slowly with medical advances, but lifestyle changes are still essential for significant improvements in mortality rates.