The healthiest place to live, judging from death rates that take into account the age distribution of the population, is the state of Hawaii. Minnesota comes in second, followed by Utah, North Dakota, and Colorado. The District of Columbia has far higher mortality than any state, followed by Mississippi, Louisiana, Alabama, and Tennessee.
In part, these geographic variations reflect the variation in the proportion of people of different races living in each state. Hawaii has by far the largest proportion of Asian-Americans, who have the lowest mortality rates among American racial and ethnic groups, and the District has a high proportion of African Americans, who have the highest mortality rates.
But even within racial and ethnic groups, there are notable variations in mortality rates across the states. The southeastern states have mortality rates above the national averages for both whites and blacks, and whites in the northern Great Plains states and Utah have mortality rates that are well below the national rate for whites. Differences in health-related behaviors, use of preventive care, and access to high-quality medical care are thought to account for much of the variation within groups.
