Life expectancy, or the estimated average age of death, is among the most basic measures of a population's health. However, monitoring differences in life expectancy among sociodemographically defined populations has been challenging, at least in the United States (US), because death certification does not include collection of markers of socioeconomic status (SES). In order to understand how SES and race/ethnicity independently and jointly affected overall health in a contemporary US population, we assigned a small-area-based measure of SES to all 689,036 deaths occurring in California during a three-year period (1999–2001) overlapping the most recent US census. Residence at death was geocoded to the smallest census area available (block group) and assigned to a quintile of a multifactorial SES index. We constructed life tables using mortality rates calculated by age, sex, race/ethnicity and neighborhood SES quintile, and produced corresponding life expectancy estimates. We found a 19.6 (±0.6) year gap in life expectancy between the sociodemographic groups with the longest life expectancy (highest SES quintile of Asian females; 84.9 years) and the shortest (lowest SES quintile of African–American males; 65.3 years). A positive SES gradient in life expectancy was observed among whites and African–Americans but not Hispanics or Asians. Age-specific mortality disparities varied among groups. Race/ethnicity and neighborhood SES had substantial and independent influences on life expectancy, underscoring the importance of monitoring health outcomes simultaneously by these factors. African–American males living in the poorest 20% of California neighborhoods had life expectancy comparable to that reported for males living in developing countries. Neighborhood SES represents a readily-available metric for ongoing surveillance of health disparities in the US.
Life expectancy, or the estimated average age of death, is among the most basic measures of a population's health. Contemporary estimates of life expectancy vary substantially by nation, with some developed countries (e.g., Japan) reporting life expectancy estimates over 40 years greater than those for some developing countries (e.g., Angola) (U.S. Census Bureau, 2007). Within countries, disparities in life expectancy estimates have been reported among population subgroups according to several sociodemographic determinants, including age, sex, race/ethnicity, immigration status, education, income, and other measures of socioeconomic status (SES) (Harper et al., 2007, Kaneda et al., 2005, Meara et al., 2008, Singh and Hiatt, 2006, Singh and Siahpush, 2006, Tobias and Cheung, 2003, United Nations, 1988, Wilkinson, 1998 and Wilkinson and Pickett, 2006).
