When it comes to life expectancy, Utah is among America’s highest-performing states.
According to the 2017 American Human Development Index, Utah’s average life expectancy is 80-81 years — that’s above the national average of 78-79 years, putting Utah among the 15 states whose average life expectancy exceeds 80.
But how are we doing, county by county?
A map recently posted on Reddit provides a new way of looking at some existing data, for both Utah and the rest of the United States.
Posted March 10 on the “Data is Beautiful” subreddit, the map by user @Spooderman89 shows which specific counties in America have a life expectancy over age 80.
The map uses data from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and HealthData.org. Other existing maps have given more specific, county-by-county data on average life expectancy, but it is interesting to see the data simplified this way, focused strictly on the 80-year-old cutoff.
As a geographic share, Utah resembles many of the western states, which have higher life expectancies than nearly all the states in the American southeast.
Which of Utah’s counties are the longest-living? Let’s take a closer look.
In the map above, counties outlined in green have average life expectancies over age 80. In total, 13 of Utah’s 29 counties had average life expectancies over age 80, according to the existing data. Those counties are as follows:
- Cache
- Daggett
- Davis
- Millard
- Morgan
- Piute
- Rich
- Sanpete
- Summit
- Utah
- Wasatch
- Washington
- Wayne
The counties with average life expectancies under age 80 are below:
- Beaver
- Box Elder
- Carbon
- Duchesne
- Emery
- Garfield
- Grand
- Iron
- Juab
- Kane
- Salt Lake
- San Juan
- Sevier
- Tooele
- Uintah
- Weber
2017 data from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, which shows each specific county’s average life expectancy, provides additional info on Utah’s age makeup.
Most of Utah falls above the 2017 national average of 78.8 years, with the exception of Beaver, Carbon, Duchesne, Emery, San Juan and Uintah counties. That means 23 of Utah’s 29 counties are above the national average.
So, does this new Reddit map tell us anything new about Utah? By itself, not a ton. But when combined with these other maps, it provides a fuller understanding of just how long Utahns are living these days.