This Is the US City With the Shortest Life Expectancy

By Douglas A. McIntyre Published Dec 1, 7:30AM EST

Follow 24/7 Wall St. on Google

This post may contain links from our sponsors and affiliates, and Flywheel Publishing may receive compensation for actions taken through them.

This Is the US City With the Shortest Life Expectancy — © bjunda / iStock via Getty Images

The last time average life expectancy declined as much as it did last year was between 1942 and 1943. In 2020, the life expectancy of Americans fell 1.5 years to 77.3. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said the drop was mostly due to the COVID-19 pandemic. In a report about the overall drop, researchers wrote, “COVID-19 deaths contributed to nearly three-fourths or 74% of the decline.” Based on COVID-19 deaths and fatal drug overdoses, no one would be surprised if the figure fell again in 2021.
[in-text-ad]
Life expectancy dropped for other reasons, but in terms of numbers, they were modest. The list includes homicide, diabetes and chronic liver disease and cirrhosis. The overall longevity of the oldest Americans remains part of the population landscape. Almost 7.5% of people in the United States were older than 85.

Using data from County Health Rankings & Roadmaps (CHR), a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and University of Wisconsin Population Health Institute joint program, 24/7 Tempo identified the U.S. metro area with the shortest average life expectancy at birth. Life expectancy figures are averages for the years 2017 through 2019, the most recent period for which metro-level data is available.
[nativounit]
Among the metropolitan areas we considered, the average life expectancy at birth ranged from nearly 76 years to less than 73, while the national average is 79.2 years.

Variations in life expectancy are tied to a number of both economic and behavioral factors. For example, tobacco use is the leading cause of preventable death in the United States. In every metro area on the list, the share of adults who smoke was above the 16.6% national average.

The American city with the lowest life expectancy is Beckley, West Virginia. Here are the details:

Life expectancy at birth (years): 72.7
Adults reporting poor or fair health: 25.6% (15th highest)
Adult obesity rate: 38.9% (23rd highest)
Smoking rate: 27.9% (the highest)
Population without health insurance: 7.2% (157th lowest)
Median household income: $44,785 (12th lowest)
Poverty rate: 17.9% (51st highest)

To determine the metro area with the shortest life expectancy, 24/7 Tempo used the 384 metropolitan statistical areas as delineated by the U.S. Office of Management and Budget and used by the Census Bureau as our definition of metros.

Metros were ranked based on life expectancy. Additional information on the share of adults reporting poor or fair health, the share of adults 20 years and older who report a body mass index of 30 kg/m2 or higher (adult obesity rate), and the share of adults who are current smokers are also from the 2021 CHR. While the CHR report is from 2021, life expectancy data published in the report are from 2017-2019.

The share of the civilian noninstitutionalized population without health insurance, median household income and poverty rates are one-year estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2019 American Community Survey.

Click here to see all the metro areas with the shortest life expectancy.
[wallst_email_signup]

About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.