Red States Experience Dramatically Lower Life Expectancies.

October 5, 2023 Glen Turpening

Ohio and other Red States out for lower life spans than the rest of the nation. (Washington Post)

Thirty years ago, Ohio’s health outcomes were on par with California’s, with nearly identical death rates for adults in the prime of life — ranking in the middle among the 50 states. But the two states’ outcomes have diverged, along with their political leanings, said Ellen Meara, a health economics and policy professor at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. She has studied why death rates fell in California, home to some of the nation’s most progressive politics, while they scarcely budged in increasingly conservative Ohio. By 2017, California had the nation’s second-lowest mortality rates, falling behind only Minnesota; Ohio ranked 41st, according to The Post analysis. Health disparities also show up unevenly across Ohio. The gleaming towers of the Cleveland Clinic, acclaimed as one of the world’s top hospitals, stand an hour away from Ashtabula, where the average life expectancy in 2018 was 75.1 years — nearly two years lower than the state of Ohio’s average and more than 3½ years shorter than the country’s average.

By Lauren Weber, Dan Diamond and Dan Keating, 'Washington Post'