Life expectancy differences among Indiana counties
MATT KINGHORN
Senior Demographer , Indiana Business Research Center , Indiana University Kelley School of Business Reprinted with permission from INcontext
The divide between the state ’ s higher life expectancy counties and those on the lower end continues to widen .
In 1984 , the life expectancy at birth for residents of Hamilton County was 1.1 years longer than for those living in Scott County . As of 2018 , the gap between these two has grown to nearly nine years .
To be sure , these communities are outliers on either end of the spectrum . Hamilton County ’ s life expectancy of 81.8 in 2018 is roughly two years greater than runner-up Monroe County ( 79.9 ), while Scott County ’ s mark of 72.9 is more than a year below Wayne County , holder of Indiana ’ s second-lowest life expectancy at 74.3 . 1
Even beyond these extremes , the divide between the state ’ s higher life expectancy counties and those on the lower end continues to widen . In 1987 , the difference between the Indiana county at the 75th percentile in this measure and that at the 25th percentile was 0.5 years . This gap has increased fourfold in the meantime and now sits at a full two years .
Unfortunately , these shifts are not the product of all counties simply rising at different rates , but rather are driven by a widespread decline in life expectancy in recent years . In fact , life expectancy for Indiana as a whole peaked in 2012 and had declined 0.5 years by 2018 . ( Keep in mind that the data presented in this article pre-date the COVID-19 pandemic .) 2 More than
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