Social Status Is Life-Expectancy Determining Factor, Not Race: Study

Stanford University researchers have determined that the citizens' life expectancy and income differ from one place to another in the United States. Social Security and tax records show that low-income civilians have shorter lifespans than wealthy ones. The study has also revealed five cities with the worst life expectancy.

The city with the lowest life expectancy age, that is 77.4 years, is Gary, Indiana. The other four cities which have results coming out to 77.6 years, are Las Vegas, Nevada; Indianapolis, Indiana; Oklahoma and Tulsa, Oklahoma. However, the reason behind the trend remains unclear to researchers because according to them, it is not easy to determine why the poor in these cities were more at risk than the poor in other cities.

The study also revealed that pollution levels or access to medical care do not have an impact on life expectancy. Instead, they think that lower income residents of the other cities simply have more access to resources than those in the four cities.

There are places where the poor are doing as well as the rich in terms of lifespan. The poor tends to do better in places with more government funding, said Healthcare Dive. However, in other places, the poor have shorter lives recently than in the past. Another emphasis of the study is that those places, which residents have shorter life expectancy, are the places with more cases of obesity, smoking and lower rates of exercise.

The highest life expectancy age for low income residents, on the other hand, can be found in New York City with 81.8 years. Santa Barbara, San Jose, and Los Angeles, California residents have 81.7 years, 81.6 years and 81.1 years respectively. Miami, Florida comes fourth with 81.2 years.

The life expectancy age of high-income residents spans from 84.1 years to 87.8 years. With the study, one can learn that the most impactful division in the U.S. is social class and not race, Global Research reported.