By Angela Hatton
Murray, KY – A study out recently from the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation shows life expectancy fell for women in eastern Kentucky, but increased for women in western Kentucky. It's part of a national evaluation of life expectancy in U. S. counties based on international standards. Doctor Aruni Bhatnagar is the director of the diabetes and obesity center at the University of Louisville. He says eastern Kentucky women have greater instances of heart disease and diabetes. But Bhatnagar says the research can't account for all possible factors.
"What is very difficult to figure out is how do you account for immigration and movement for a population in and out of a county, and they do some statistical adjusting for that, but I'm not convinced you can do that very well, so maybe there are population shifts between eastern and western Kentucky that could, uh, sort of contribute to these differences."
The only western Kentucky county that saw a slight dip in women's life expectancy was Hopkins county. Men showed gains in all Kentucky counties except one, Perry.