Life expectancy in Mississippi

A new study ("Falling behind: life expectancy in US counties from 2000 to 2007 in an international context," was published June 15, 2011 in BioMed Central’s open-access journal Population Health Metrics) examines the life expectancy of all counties in the U. S. and includes some international comparisons.  Unfortunately, Mississippi figures negatively in the study as follows.

Five counties in Mississippi have the lowest life expectancies for women, all below 74.5 years, putting them behind nations such as Honduras, El Salvador, and Peru. Four of those counties, along with Humphreys County, MS, have the lowest life expectancies for men, all below 67 years, meaning they are behind Brazil, Latvia, and the Philippines.

The data for the study can be downloaded and below I show the ten counties for males and females with the lowest life expectancy (in years for 2007) in Mississippi.  The average life expectancy in 2007 was 70.9 years for males and 77.9 for females.