Study: Life expectancy varies by neighborhood — and the gap is huge

24/7 Wall Street

A recently released report shows that in some American cities, the lifespan can be nearly 30 years longer in one neighborhood than in another. In fact, the span is over 20 years in 56 of the 500 largest U.S. cities.

Researchers in the Department of Population Health at NYU School of Medicine set the city neighborhood life expectancy measure. They used data from the City Health Dashboard, another nonprofit organization. Their core conclusion: “The research team analyzed Dashboard data to identify factors associated with large gaps in average life expectancy across neighborhoods in 500 U.S. cities.

They found that cities with greater degrees of racial and ethnic segregation more often had alarming disparities in life expectancy across different census tracts, which often are used as proxies for neighborhoods in public health research.” While there is no such thing as the perfect city, the United States is full of places with few, if any, strengths — these are the worst cities to live in America.