Some Ohioans are living shorter lives - Columbus Dispatch

By  Misti Crane

The Columbus Dispatch Sunday April 22, 2012 5:47 AM

Geauga County women have the best shot of living a long life in Ohio; Scioto County men, the worst.

The number of years Ohioans are expected to live varies significantly depending on where we live, according to an analysis from the University of Washington’s Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation.

In many counties, the chances of enjoying eight decades is becoming more likely. But in a handful of Ohio counties â€" and in hundreds nationwide â€" people, especially women, are living shorter lives.

Women in Adams, Champaign, Hardin, Highland, Holmes and Mercer counties had shorter life expectancies in 2009 than a decade earlier; in Jackson County, a man’s expected life span slipped.

“Some of our newborns are not going to live as long as their moms,” said Ali Mokdad, the head of the research team.

Discrepancies throughout the nation, combined with the fact that other developed countries are making much greater improvements in life expectancy, paint a disturbing picture for the United States, he said.

“Compared to other countries â€" our peers â€" we’re not gaining life as much as they are. There is a big gap, and we are falling behind,” Mokdad said.

The United States has an overall life expectancy of 78, according to the World Bank. Germany’s is 80, Italy’s is 82, Japan’s is 83.

“We are spending much more money than anybody else in the world on our health,” Mokdad said. “We’re not getting anything worth our investment.”

Across the country, life expectancy ranged from 66.1 to 81.6 years for men and 73.5 to 86.0 years for women. In two decades, men’s life expectancy improved by 4.6 years; women’s by 2.7.

The outlook for black Americans is worse, but the divide has started to close. In 2009, a black man could expect to live to 71.2, almost a decade longer than in 1989. Black women gained more than four years, to a life expectancy of 77.9 in 2009.

In Franklin County, where in 2009 a man could expect to live to be 74.4 years old and a woman 79.3, improvements in the past two decades have been more significant for men than women. In 1989, a man could expect to live to 70.8, a woman to 77.7 years.

The obstacles to universal and greater improvements should seem obvious by now. The socioeconomic divide between one American and the next can be vast; many people don’t have health insurance or have insurance that isn’t very good; not everyone who gets care gets good-quality care; and smoking and obesity continue to plague the country.

Jackson County Health Commissioner Gregory A. Ervin said he was not surprised by his county’s low life-expectancy numbers, or of those in neighboring counties. Appalachia has a long list of challenges that all contribute.

“Exercise is an exception rather than the norm for a lot of us; smoking is still a major issue â€" alcohol, joblessness, poverty, all that,” Ervin said.

Other challenges include prescription-drug abuse, which is killing people long before their time, and a lack of preventive care for many of the area’s residents, he said.

“Unfortunately, we’ve only seen decreases in funding. We have no cardiovascular risk-reduction program, no diabetes-education program. We’re down to basic core functions.”

Dr. Mysheika LeMaile-Williams, medical director at Columbus Public Health, said the major changes that have extended Americans’ lives are credited to public health â€" think vaccines, clean water and antibiotics.

Today, though, other countries are seeing more significant improvements because of a variety of things, including more-progressive attitudes about sexual health and infrastructure built to encourage physical activity, she said.

“And some don’t see as much disparity within their society. In the United States, it truly is the haves and the have-nots.”

mcrane@dispatch.com

@MistiCrane