A new study published in PLoS Medicine online says that the life expectancy of those who live in America varies greatly. Researchers say an Asian-American woman may live two decades longer than an African-American male who lives in an urban area.
"The evidence is really quite clear that most of the gap across these groups is due to differences in mortality in young and middle-aged adult men and women and most of that is due to chronic disease," lead researcher Christopher Murray told Bloomberg. He added that the differences probably prevailed because of injury and other risk factors like smoking, alcoholism and obesity."It's not HIV. It's not homicide. It's cardiovascular disease. It's chronic respiratory disease, liver disease and somewhat cancers," Murray said.
Researchers examined data from the Census Bureau and the National Center for Health Statistics and found that gaps in life expectancy have not changed much from 1982 to 2001. The study was funded by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Association of Schools for Public Health and the National Institute on Aging.
Source-Medindia
RAS
