U.S. life expectancy can vary greatly depending on where you live, according to a JAMA Internal Medicine study published on Monday.
The study determined that average life expectancy at birth increased from 73.8 years to 79.1 years between 1980 and 2014 for men and women, but there was a 20.1-year difference between the counties with the highest and lowest life expectancies, reported CBS News.
The Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, the independent research center at the University of Washington which conducted the study, said Oglala Lakota County in South Dakota, for example, only had a life expectancy of 66.8 years in 2014.
The life expectancy of the county, which includes the Pine Ridge Native American reservation, was comparable to countries like Sudan (67.2), India (66.9), and Iraq (67.7).
The institute added that groups of counties in Kentucky, West Virginia, Alabama, and several along the Mississippi River saw their life expectancy drop from what it was in 1980.
The study's authors said that there are various, complex issues involved in the dramatic difference in life expectancy in the U.S., including obesity, lack of exercise, smoking, hypertension (high blood pressure), and diabetes, according to the JAMA study.
Researchers said that socioeconomic factors, like poverty, income, education, unemployment, and race, also played a factor, noted CBS News.
"What we found is that the gap is enormous," Christopher Murray, who heads the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, told National Public Radio. "With every passing year, inequality — however you measure it — has been widening over the last 34 years. And so next year, we can reliably expect it'll be even more than 20. That is probably the most alarming part of the analysis."
The institute released a map that highlighted life expectancy in each county on Twitter.
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