Indiana's life expectancy falling further behind U.S.

• Author: Kinghorn, Matt

In 1959, Indiana's life expectancy at birth was 70.5 years, a mark that was above the nation's 69.9 years and ranked 18th-highest among states. Over the next 35 years, Indiana's life expectancy trend mirrored that of the U.S., but the state began to lose ground in the mid-1990s (see Figure 1). While Indiana has been falling behind in this measure for 25 years now, the divergence has accelerated over the past decade, with the state's gap relative to the U.S. widening by nearly a full year between 2008 and 2018.

Even more troubling, Indiana's life expectancy peaked in 2010 at 77.5 years and has largely been in decline since. (1) As a result, Indiana's life expectancy of 77.1 in 2018 is 1.9 years lower than the U.S. and places 40th nationally (see Figure 2).

Indiana's decline in life expectancy is occurring despite progress in the fights against the two dominant causes of death. Over the past decade, the state's mortality rate from heart disease is down 10% and cancer mortality declined by nearly 14% (see Table 1). (2)

The primary driver of Indiana's decline in life expectancy is the dramatic rise in deaths caused by substance abuse. The state's mortality rate from drug- and alcohol-induced causes has more than doubled in the last 10 years. Drug overdoses alone have increased 107% over this same span and accounted for 71% of all drug- and alcohol-induced mortality during the 2017-2019 period.

This surge in mortality from substance abuse has an outsized impact on the life expectancy measure since it tends to claim the lives of younger people. Figure 3 drives this point home by highlighting the degree to which different age groups in Indiana have contributed to the overall change in life expectancy over the past decade. Better outcomes for Hoosiers in the 65-to-84 age group and in the 85 and older group help them boost Indiana's life expectancy by a combined 0.37 years over this period. Ongoing improvements in infant mortality mean that the youngest age group continues to make a positive contribution to this measure as well. However, rising mortality among Indiana's working-age adults has been large enough to overwhelm the gains in other age groups and cause an overall drop in life expectancy.

Figure 3: Age group contributions to total change in Indiana life expectancy Age Group Contribution to change in life expectency (years) 0 to 14 0.06 15 to 24 -0.03 25 to 44 -0.35 45 to 64 -0.19 65 to 34 0.25 85+ 0.12 Note: Change is calculated using the 2006-2008 average and the 2016-2018 average. The age group decomposition of changes in life expectancy was done using methods developed by Eduardo E. Arriaga. (3) Source: Indiana Business Research Center, using data from the United States Mortality Database. University of California, Berkeley (USA). Available at usa.mortality.org (data downloaded on 5/10/2021). Note: Table made from bar graph. The story of rising mortality for working-age adults has been well-documented and much-discussed in recent years. Anne Case and Angus Deaton of Princeton University were...