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SALT LAKE CITY — Life expectancy rates in Utah are some of the highest in the country, but according to a new study, those numbers are continually falling behind other countries in the international race for longevity.
People are living longer across the globe, yet the United States is not keeping pace.
And the closer the look, the discrepancies are even larger. A county-by-county analysis, performed by researchers at the University of Washington's Institute of Health Metrics and Evaluation identifies areas of the country where neighboring communities have very different life expectancy rates.
For a woman living in Tooele, she'd be better off living in Uruguay or Albania.
–Dr. Ali Mokdad
Even within the Salt Lake Valley, the Utah Department of Health has found staggering differences, as individuals living in the Foothill area can expect to live up to eight years longer than their peers in Glendale.
"We think we're so on top of it, but unfortunately, we're only on top of it in certain areas of the country and for certain people," said Dr. Ali Mokdad, a professor of global health at the University of Washington. He said Utah is average in the nation as far as life expectancy goes, but areas within Utah compare to countries such as Puerto Rico, Portugal, Poland and Kuwait.
Experts believe many factors contribute to the local disparities, including vast differences in income and education levels, access or lack thereof to health insurance and quality medical care, as well as efforts taken for prevention.
"For a woman living in Tooele, she'd be better off living in Uruguay or Albania," Mokdad said. Men living in Carbon County, he said, are living in similar conditions to that of the Middle East's Qatar. "And that's scary."
Prior to World War II, life expectancy in the United States was similar to that of Australia, but since then, men and women living in the land down under have surpassed Americans, living four and five years longer, respectively.
We don't have a long-term plan for preventing diseases or illnesses and improving risk factors in our communities.
–Dr. Ali Mokdad
"It's all about prevention," Mokdad said, adding that America invests a lot of money in the best available medical technology, but "not in what is really important."
"We don't have a long-term plan for preventing diseases or illnesses and improving risk factors in our communities," he said. Researchers are hoping the recent numbers, published in the journal Population Health Metrics, will help to guide public policy down to the local level, where health departments and individuals can get involved.
Twenty years ago, the overall life expectancy for a man in Utah was about 74.3 years. In 2007, that rate had increased to 77.2 years. For women in Utah, the rate has changed from 79.7 years of age in 1987, to 81.5 years in 2007, not much movement, according to the IHME report.
The region where life expectancy is lowest, and in some places declining, begins in West Virginia and runs through the southern Appalachian Mountains and west, through the deep South, into north Texas. Places of high life expectancy are more scattered throughout the U.S. In addition to northern Virginia, they include counties in Colorado, Minnesota, Utah, California, Washington state and Florida.
UDOH spokesman Tom Hudachko said Utah's high life expectancy rates have something to do with the state's low rates of some of the leading causes of death nationwide.
"We have a generally healthy population that chooses to lead an overall healthy lifestyle," he said, adding that fewer Utahns die from heart disease and cancer than anywhere in the United States. When compared to the rest of the country, Utah also has a very small population of smokers and a high prevalence of physically active people.
Hudachko said that while the numbers look good, "we've certainly got our challenges." The obesity rate in the state is climbing, for example.
The department, as in other states and communities, is working hard at the local level to prevent illness, death and injury, he said, as well as provide education and screening programs that "make a difference in the overall health of the population and definitely lead to longer life expectancy."
And that is what it takes, according to the national experts.
"In Australia, they are more aggressive than we are," Mokdad told the ksl.com Wednesday. Policies instituted there have allowed more people to choose to lead healthier lifestyles, including strict tobacco laws, more sidewalks and community prevention programs, as well as family health care options available to everyone.
He said Utah's policies on smoking help to create a healthier environment for many Utahns, but such action isn't being taken across America.
Not everyone has sidewalks in their neighborhoods and not everyone has access to fresh fruits and vegetables at the closest grocery stores, and not all food stores carry healthy options.
"In some areas of the country, even if I make the decision to do good and live longer, I can't do that," Mokdad said, adding that in many counties, even biking to work isn't safe because of how the roads line up. He believes more can be done to make healthy lifestyles more probable and equitable in America.
Between 2000 and 2007, life expectancies in more than 80 percent of U.S. counties fell in standing against the average of the 10 nations with the best life expectancies in the world, including Japan, France, Switzerland and Italy, according to the IHME research. Researchers noted that if the leading four risk factors of poor health in America — smoking, high blood pressure, elevated blood glucose and obesity — were addressed, life expectancy rates would increase even further and local disparities would likely be reduced, providing healthier conditions for all Americans.
"Health promoters" in El Salvador, who live within various communities, interact with the public to perform checks, make recommendations and be sure people are doing what they can to be healthy and are taking advantage of available local programs, Mokdad said.
"There is more active involvement at the community level," he said. "That is very encouraging and something we should be looking at."
Contributing: Associated Press
Email:wleonard@ksl.com
