Time to Move?

The Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation has a map up on their website that shows the life expectancy for men and women from 1989 to 2009 on a county by county basis. That means you can look for your county and find out, on average, how much longer you've got based on where you live. For Lake County, Illinois (next to Lake Michigan and the Wisconsin border) the life expectancy for men is 79.1 years and for women 82.3 years.  So I have about 18 years to go if I'm average. Although the number for Auglaize County in Ohio is 76.1 and my dad is 91. So maybe I still have some time to write that novel.   

There are a number of interesting details on the map. You can stroll through the years one by one and see how things have changed for your county. When you click on your county, it also tells you how far behind the top county you are (2.5 years for me). The top county for men is Marin County, California. It's also interesting that counties in the northern half of the United States are nearly uniformly higher in life expectancy than those in the southern half, especially in the southeastern part of the U.S. Several counties in Mississippi are more than 14 years behind the top county. But the way I understand it, time moves more slowly down there, so maybe it all balances out.  

I can't afford to move to the California coast to get those extra two and a half years. By that time the Illinois state legislature will have eliminated my teacher pension completely and we'll be living with Nate or Mike (probably on a rotating basis - No! It's your turn), so I'll leave it up to them.