What Counties in New York State Have the Longest Life Expectancies?

The overall life expectancy in the United States has declined to 76.4 years, which is the shortest it’s been in nearly two decades, according to data from the CDC posted at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health's website.

Experts believe there are a number of factors for the recent decline, and COVID is only one of them. A report from 2021 points to a rising mortality among U.S. children and youth between 2019 and 2021, which TIME referred to as a "profound crisis".

New York State Sees Biggest Drop 

New York state took quite a hit over the past few years. According to numbers from the CDC, New York state saw the biggest decline in life expectancy in the nation, from 80.7 years in 2019 to 77.7 in 2020. The CDC found that the steep decline was mainly due to factors such as COVID-19 and rising drug overdoses.

But if you want to break it down even further with the state, what counties in New York have the longest life expectancies?

Is New York State Healthy or Unhealthy? 

Forbes Advisor took a look at the data, using numbers from  the Kaiser Family Foundation and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Forbes analyzed metrics from three key categories: disease prevalence and mortality rate, substance abuse, and lifestyle habits and health outlook.

And while the report by Forbes says that New Yorkers have a fairly high rate of cancer, compared to other states (around 617 per 100,000 state residents), our overall score was one of the better ones. Forbes says that New York ranked 9th in the country for health.

Massachusetts was 5th, Connecticut 8th, New Jersey 10th, and Vermont 13th. Hawaii was the healthiest, and West Virginia ranked last.