How long might you live?

How we work it out

We start from each country's published death rates by age and sex for 2019, the last year before the pandemic. These come from the World Health Organization.

Your habits move those rates up or down. In a study of about 120,000 US adults, people with all five habits had about a quarter of the death risk of people with none. We assume the average adult has two of the five. We weaken the effect after 65, because studies find smaller effects at older ages.

For places in the United States (each state and the 40 largest metro areas) the death rates are the same kind of table, from the US government's state life tables for 2019. Metro areas are estimates: we start from the state table and shift it by how much longer or shorter lives are in that metro area's counties. The optional income level lowers the yearly death rate from age 40 by the amount seen in US tax and death records for that part of the income range, with half the effect left by age 90. It is on top of the habits setting, and the two overlap a little, so together they can run slightly high.

A place with no table of its own uses the average of the 20 countries whose life expectancy at birth is closest to its own. The page says so when you pick the place.

If you move, a move counts for all of the difference between the death rates of the two places. The range shows the full spread, from none of the difference applying to all of it, plus 15% either way for what we don't know.

What this leaves out

Your own health, your family history, and the care you can reach near home. Air quality, road conditions and distance to a hospital also differ by city, and we don't model them.

The income effect comes from US records for 2001 to 2014 and measures household income while people were working (ages 40 to 61), not retirees. Richer people also differ in ways the habits setting already counts, and the income gap has probably widened since. For metro areas, the shift is measured for life at birth and spread evenly across ages. Differences between neighborhoods inside one metro area are larger than differences between metro areas, often 8 to 11 years.

Places called blue zones are not shown separately. Their records are disputed, and we found nothing showing they beat their country's average.

The habits effect comes from US health professionals, who are healthier than average. It may be smaller for other groups. Under 50, we apply the same effect, but most of the studies followed people from 50 on, so it is less certain for younger adults. Accidents and illness at younger ages also vary a lot by country.