A study published last month in the medical journal The Lancet found a gap of more than 20 years between U.S. demographics with the highest and lowest life expectancies.

The study, conducted by the Institute of Health Metrics and Evaluation, divided the U.S. population into 10 Americas or profiles based on both race and geography, following up on a 2006 study that created eight such demographic profiles.

The authors found that while in 2000 the gap between the highest and lowest life expectancy groups was 12.6 years, by 2021 it had grown to 20.4 years.

In 2021, Asian Americans living in populations where native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders made up less than 30% of that population in 2020 had the nation’s highest average life expectancy at 84 years.

Asian Americans were also the longest-lived group in 2000 according to the study with an average 83.1 year life expectancy, while Black Americans living in poor Southern counties were the shortest-lived at 70.5 years.

Conversely in 2021, American Indians living in Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico, Utah, Colorado, North Dakota, South Dakota, Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming and Minnesota had the lowest life expectancy on average at just 63.6 years.

The COVID-19 pandemic in particular exacerbated the disparity. While all groups suffered a drop in life expectancy as a result of the pandemic, the former group lost only 1.9 years of average life expectancy between 2019 and 2021 compared to a staggering 6.6 years for the latter.

After the first Asian American cohort, the second-longest life expectancy on average in 2021 belonged to Latinos living outside of Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado and Texas at 79.4 years.

In third there was a grab bag cohort of Native Americans and Alaska Natives living outside the aforementioned states, Asian populations not included in their first cohort and the majority of White Americans, those living outside poor regions in the northern U.S., Appalachia and the Lower Mississippi Valley. This composite group had an average life expectancy of 77.2 years.

White Americans in certain poor counties in the northern U.S. came in fourth at 76.7 years, followed by Latinos in the Southwest at 76 years, Black Americans outside urban areas and poor counties in the South at 72.3 years, Black Americans in urban areas at 71.5 years, White Americans in Appalachia and the Lower Mississippi Valley at 71.1 years and Black Americans in poor Southern counties at 68 years.

• Brad Matthews can be reached at bmatthews@washingtontimes.com.