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Differences in Life Expectancy Underestimated for Indigenous Americans

By Elana Gotkine HealthDay Reporter

Medically reviewed by Carmen Pope, BPharm. Last updated on June 26, 2025.

via HealthDay

WEDNESDAY, June 25, 2025 -- Large differences in life expectancy between American Indian/Alaska Native (AI/AN) individuals versus other U.S. residents have been underestimated, according to a study published online June 16 in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

Jacob Bor, S.D., from the Boston University School of Public Health, and colleagues estimated age-specific mortality rates and life expectancy for non-Hispanic AI/AN individuals and other racial and ethnic groups in a national cohort. The longitudinal study used data from the Mortality Disparities in American Communities (MDAC) study and comprised 4,135,000 American Community Survey respondents, including 30,500 and 58,000 who self-identified as AI/AN (alone) and AI/AN alone or in combination with another race (AI/AN-AiC), respectively.

The researchers found that the life expectancy of self-identified AI/AN individuals was 72.7 years (73.9 for AI/AN-AiC individuals), which was 6.5 years less than the U.S.-wide average. There was a widening in the average life expectancy gap from 4.1 years in 2008 to 2010 to 8.0 years in 2017 to 2019 for AI/AN individuals versus other U.S. residents. Only 59.0 and 39.8 percent of self-identified AI/AN and AI/AN-AiC decedents had AI/AN race reported on their death certificates, yielding classification ratios of 1.26 and 1.81. Compared with the U.S. average, age-standardized mortality was 5 percent higher for AI/AN individuals in U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention WONDER data; mortality for self-identified AI/AN individuals was 42 percent higher using MDAC data. Compared with unadjusted official statistics, the AI/AN life expectancy gap was 2.9 times larger in MDAC.

"Our findings underscore the need for accurate public health data to understand and address health inequities," Bor said in a statement.

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Disclaimer: Statistical data in medical articles provide general trends and do not pertain to individuals. Individual factors can vary greatly. Always seek personalized medical advice for individual healthcare decisions.

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