Those on the hunt for ways to live longer might try moving to the villages of Glen Ellyn or Itasca.
A team of researchers at The University of Washington’s Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation found that DuPage County residents had the longest life expectancy among 102 counties in the state.
And though Illinoisans are living longer than previous generations, they are also growing more obese — a condition affecting more than a third of the state, according to the institute’s report released Wednesday.
“We are living longer in the United States, (but) we are not living longer with better health,” said Ali Mokdad, a global health professor at the University of Washington who was a lead researcher on the study.
But the life span improvements are not spread evenly between genders across the state.
Men’s life expectancies have grown longer at a faster rate than women’s during previous decades, narrowing the gap between the genders by about two years, according to the report.
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For example, men born in Illinois in 2010 can expect to live to be 76.3 years old, up from 70.7 years for men born in 1985. During that same time period, women only saw life expectancy grow by 3.5 years to 81 years old, according to the data.
In some counties, female life span estimates were the same in 2010 as they were in 1985.
The institute’s researchers did not offer a definitive reason for the difference in growth but said the fact that women started smoking en masse later than men may have something to do with it. Additionally, Mokdad said women have had less success controlling factors that lead to heart disease, in part because they and their doctors are not as concerned with doing so because there is a perception that women are less at risk.
Being “female is not seen as a risk factor,” he said. “(But) women have to understand that heart disease is the No. 1 killer.”
The data also revealed stark geographic differences in the health of local residents.
Those living in DuPage and Kane counties can expect to live longer — as many as eight years in the case of DuPage — than those living in the rural southern regions of the state such as Alexander, Pope and Pulaski counties, according to the data.
Researchers point to access to quality medical care, socioeconomic factors and modifiable risk factors such as diet and exercise as reasons for the disparities.
“People are waiting for a pill to solve their problems, but in reality it’s our behavior,” Mokdad said.
Not surprisingly, Illinois counties with higher life expectancies also showed higher rates of sufficient physical activity and lower obesity rates, according to the data.
Local health officials seemed unfazed by the results.
“It’s not surprising that we are ranking low,” said Patricia Moehring, the community health education director for Southern Seven Health Department, which represents Alexander. Moehring said the county has high numbers of lower income residents, who often have less access to grocery stores and live more sedentary lives than in other parts of the state.
By contrast, those living in the St. Louis bedroom communities of Monroe County are often older and more affluent and live near a city where there is ample medical care.
David Hass, the communications manager for the DuPage County Health Department, said he wasn’t surprised to hear that more residents in the area are getting sufficient exercise and are more likely to live longer.
“We’ve been ranked pretty high (before),” Hass said. “DuPage residents do have access to good medical” care.
Mokdad said states and counties might benefit by swapping success stories about public health policies aimed at decreasing obesity and increasing exercise.
“It’s not fixed in stone at all,” he said. “If one county can do it, why can’t the other?”
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