Why Do Asians Live Longer than Whites in the United States?

• In Event: 598 - Section on Asia and Asian America Roundtable Session.
  In Refereed Roundtable: Section on Asia and Asian America Roundtables. Table 01. Health and Educational Outcomes

Abstract

Asian-Americans outlive whites by an average of nearly 8 years. By determining the sources of the Asian mortality advantage, we can pinpoint where there is the greatest potential for raising the life expectancy of whites and other groups in the United States. We create multidecrement life tables for Asians and whites, based on the CDC detailed mortality data. Then we apply a newly-developed demographic method to determine whether Asians have longer life expectancy because they are less likely than whites to die of causes of death that strike at younger ages, or because they tend to outlive whites regardless of cause of death. We find that nearly 90% of the Asian-white life expectancy gap is attributable to the fact that Asians tend to outlive whites for each cause of death and only 10% is due to the fact that whites are more likely to die of causes that tend to strike at younger ages. The causes that contribute the most to the gap are heart disease (24%) and cancers (18%). Men contribute somewhat more to the gap than women do (55% versus 45%), primarily due to differences with respect to suicide, traffic accidents, and accidental poisoning.

Authors

• Francesco Acciai, Pennsylvania State University

• Aggie Jooyoung Noah, Pennsylvania State University

• Glenn Firebaugh, Pennsylvania State University