Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
I call BS on Washington and Oregon, there's no way those states known for high drug use, suicide, depression, and horrible weather (Seasonal Affective Disorder anyone?) have the longest life expectancies.
California and Hawaii makes sense, the warmer and hotter the climate, and near the ocean, the happier and healthier the people are.
I call BS on Washington and Oregon, there's no way those states known for high drug use, suicide, depression, and horrible weather (Seasonal Affective Disorder anyone?) have the longest life expectancies.
California and Hawaii makes sense, the warmer and hotter the climate, and near the ocean, the happier and healthier the people are.
You weren't able to mentally handle the (rather mild) winters in Washington/Oregon. Several other people can. Your conclusion that sunshine and warmth makes people happier is not supported by anything. You're just trying to project your beliefs on everyone else.
Anyway, Hawaii is always at the top so I wasn't surprised by that. Washington and Minnesota rounding out the top 3 makes sense as they always have a fairly high life expectancy, even dating back several decades.
An overweight smoker isn't going to extend their life by moving to Hawaii. Nor is a healthy active non-smoker in West Virginia at a higher risk of an early demise.
I disagree with this list, not sure what type of data or research was used to compile this list but it does not make sense.. Just to point out a few:
First and foremost, how on earth is California on this list? California's metro centers are inundated with high-stress lifestyles, horrible traffic congestion, crime, high COL, homelessness, high drug and alcohol abuse, etc... How does this make for a good/healthy place to live? One could say the same about Washington and Oregon..
The South and Midwest are totally missing, no Florida? Frankly the list seems very bias towards the west coast..
Life expectancy includes far too much to simplif y to one issue like just obesity, or just climate, or just drug use.
Depression and suicide, stress, childhood diseases, murder rates, accident rates, public safety... there is an awful lot that goes into it.
How about the difference between some cities having top quality health care and others having deficient health care. It is one thing to have a medical issue and another to be able to survive it because of quality health care.
Education is probably a huge factor, or lack thereof. Education levels tend to correlate with life expectancy.
It is a whole host of factors from cradle to grave. If you are tops in fatalities to children, you can't be tops in life expectancy since you don't even have the rates of childhood survival to make it there.
Even abortion rates can make a difference. If you abort a fetus with expected medical issues, it doesn't county as a death but if you bring the baby to term and it dies from the known medical problems, that reduces life expectancy. So it is just a very complex issue to nail down. I don't think we can boil it down to a simple formula. As noted, there are some very impactful factors like smoking and obesity.
The site linked lists life expectancy for all 50 states, but not the factors they determined were important regarding life expectancy or how the states differed in that regard. They have most and least obese states, but how about most and least suicides, or most and least drug overdoses, or most and least murder victims, etc. & etc.
I was hoping to find a link to an analysis of the NiceRX study, with methodology and a listing of the most important factors related to life expectancy.
I call BS on Washington and Oregon, there's no way those states known for high drug use, suicide, depression, and horrible weather (Seasonal Affective Disorder anyone?) have the longest life expectancies.
California and Hawaii makes sense, the warmer and hotter the climate, and near the ocean, the happier and healthier the people are.
I disagree with this list, not sure what type of data or research was used to compile this list but it does not make sense.. Just to point out a few:
First and foremost, how on earth is California on this list? California's metro centers are inundated with high-stress lifestyles, horrible traffic congestion, crime, high COL, homelessness, high drug and alcohol abuse, etc... How does this make for a good/healthy place to live? One could say the same about Washington and Oregon..
The South and Midwest are totally missing, no Florida? Frankly the list seems very bias towards the west coast..
Florida has a high rate of poverty. It's 18th among the 50 states. It also ranks 4th among the states in the rate of uninsured (18.1%). Pretty remarkable considering how many elderly people live there (government provided Medicare).
This list is very unsurprising. Same list every year I can remember for at least 15 years. Folks can be offended but they could also just use google or census data.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.