U.S. longevity gains study

A new study says people born in every United States state between 1941 and 2000 gained years of life, contradicting earlier claims of regional backsliding. (bmjopen.bmj.com) The paper, published in *BMJ Open* in April 2026, was co-authored by Héctor Pifarré i Arolas and Jason Fletcher of the University of Wisconsin–Madison and José Andrade of the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research. It examined cohort life expectancy, which tracks the expected lifespan of people born in the same year, rather than a one-year mortality snapshot. (bmjopen.bmj.com) (lafollette.wisc.edu) Using the United States Mortality Database, the researchers estimated cohort life expectancy for birth cohorts from 1941 through 2000 in all states and Washington, District of Columbia. They reported gains everywhere, with increases ranging from about 7 to 8 years in Oklahoma and Arkansas to more than 14 years for men in Arizona, New Mexico and South Carolina. (bmjopen.bmj.com) The difference between cohort and period measures is central to the dispute. Period life expectancy is a snapshot built from death rates in a single year, while cohort life expectancy follows a birth group across time and can capture the effects of childhood survival and later-life mortality more directly. (bmjopen.bmj.com) The authors describe a two-stage pattern, not a simple widening gap. States converged sharply in the 1940s as Southern states cut under-five mortality, then that convergence largely stalled from the 1960s onward. (bmjopen.bmj.com) (lafollette.wisc.edu) That finding pushes back on a recent paper led by Theodore Holford of the Yale School of Public Health, which had estimated that many Southern states saw little gain or even declines in cohort life expectancy after 1950. The new study says those losses disappear when newer mortality data and different estimation methods are used. (lafollette.wisc.edu) (bmjopen.bmj.com) One example is Mississippi. The Wisconsin-led team said the earlier paper found no gain in female longevity there over 50 years, while their updated estimate found roughly 7 additional years. (lafollette.wisc.edu) The paper also argues that early-life public health and medical interventions help explain why the South closed part of the gap in mid-century. The authors point to child survival improvements as a major driver of that earlier convergence. (bmjopen.bmj.com) (lafollette.wisc.edu) The estimates still come with limits. The study says younger cohorts require mortality forecasts because much of their lives have not yet been observed, and it does not break trends out separately by race or ethnicity or track people who moved between states. (bmjopen.bmj.com) The bottom line is narrower than “everywhere caught up.” The researchers say all states posted gains, but they also say those gains were unequal and that state-level convergence appears to have stalled decades ago. (lafollette.wisc.edu)