Left behind: widening disparities for males and females in US county life expectancy, 1985-2010.

ABSTRACT:

Background

The United States spends more than any other country on health care. The poor relative performance of the US compared to other high-income countries has attracted attention and raised questions about the performance of the US health system. An important dimension to poor national performance is the large disparities in life expectancy.

Methods

We applied a mixed effects Poisson statistical model and Gaussian Process Regression to estimate age-specific mortality rates for US counties from 1985 to 2010. We generated uncertainty distributions for life expectancy at each age using standard simulation methods.

Results

Female life expectancy in the United States increased from 78.0 years in 1985 to 80.9 years in 2010, while male life expectancy increased from 71.

SUBMITTER: Wang H 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3717281 | biostudies-literature | 2013 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature