April 25, 2012 | 9:00 AM | By

Explaining The Life Expectancy Gap Between Whites And Blacks

Predicting how long you’ll live has less to do with your race and where you live than it does with a set of socioeconomic factors, ranging from martial status to education level.

That’s according to new a study by Standford University researchers. They found the differences in life expectancy rates between black and white Americans all but disappear when taking into account a group of 22 variables, including income, education and work history. Geography also becomes irrelevant.

Still, a documented difference does exist: the average white man lives nearly seven years longer than the average black man. This new study points at the specific reasons explaining that gap.


“Geographic and racial disparities,” said first author Mark Cullen, MD, “are best understood as related to disparities in education, occupations and the like, which are strongly associated with outcomes in every county we studied, whether it was large, small, urban, rural, Southern or not.”

Read more at: www.eurekalert.org