Rocky Mount Telegram
Geography and income levels play a big role in determining life expectancy in North Carolina.
A report from NC Child offers life expectancy averages for every county in the state, ranging from 73.1 years in Swain County to 81.4 years in Wake County. Nash’s life expectancy for a baby born in 2014 is 76.1 years on average. Edgecombe County’s life expectancy is 75.6.
Those numbers are higher than Halifax County’s 74.3 years, but not as high as Wilson County’s at 77 or Pitt County’s at 78.
While the local life expectancy rates are better than those found in many other parts of the world, it’s clear that the Twin Counties has room for improvement. Considering the quality of health care services in Nash and Edgecombe counties, plus easy access to other facilities in Greenville, Raleigh and Durham, we would expect life expectancy here to equal Pitt County’s, at least.
One of the brighter points made by the NC Child report is the availability of health care insurance. The rate of uninsured children in North Carolina has declined to 6.2 percent. We would all like to see every child in the state insured, but the improvement means that some 93 out of every 100 children has an insurance plan that provides for health care.
Life expectancy is an important indicator of the health of a community. We look forward to more improvement, but the world has come a long way in the past 100 years.
Source: Insurance Availability Helps Life Expectancy.