{"id":224078,"date":"2025-10-23T10:56:47","date_gmt":"2025-10-23T20:56:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/?p=224078"},"modified":"2025-10-23T15:07:08","modified_gmt":"2025-10-24T01:07:08","slug":"life-expectancy-study","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/2025\/10\/23\/life-expectancy-study\/","title":{"rendered":"<abbr>UH<\/abbr> study: 19-year life expectancy gap among Hawai\u02bbi groups"},"content":{"rendered":"<span class=\"span-reading-time rt-reading-time\" style=\"display: block;\"><span class=\"rt-label rt-prefix\">Reading time: <\/span> <span class=\"rt-time\"> 2<\/span> <span class=\"rt-label rt-postfix\">minutes<\/span><\/span><p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/manoa-gnc-family-silhouette-back.jpg\" alt=\"Silhouette of family on sunset background\" width=\"676\" height=\"381\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-224203\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/manoa-gnc-family-silhouette-back.jpg 676w, https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/manoa-gnc-family-silhouette-back-300x169.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/manoa-gnc-family-silhouette-back-130x73.jpg 130w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 676px) 100vw, 676px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>A new University of <span lang=\"haw\">Â鶹´«Ã½<\/span> study reveals a striking 19-year difference in life expectancy among <span lang=\"haw\">Â鶹´«Ã½<\/span>\u2019s major ethnic groups. The updated analysis, published in the <a href=\"https:\/\/hawaiijournalhealth.org\/docs\/HJHSW%20October%202025%20Issue.pdf?ct=t%28HJH&#038;SW_October_2025_Issue_COPY_01%29=&#038;mc_cid=1341a9f9fa&#038;mc_eid=2020e79e35\"><em><span lang=\"haw\">Â鶹´«Ã½<\/span> Journal of Health and Social Welfare<\/em><\/a> (<small><abbr title=\"portable document format\">PDF<\/abbr><\/small>), shows that while the state continues to rank among the nation\u2019s healthiest, Native Hawaiians and Other Pacific Islanders continue to face the greatest disparities.<\/p>\n<p>Researchers from <abbr title=\"University of Hawaii\">UH<\/abbr> M\u0101noa\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/manoa.hawaii.edu\/thompson\/\">Thompson School of Social Work &#38; Public Health<\/a>&#8212;Yan Yan Wu, Michael M. Phillips, and Kathryn L. Braun\u2014collaborated with Lance Ching and Claire Prieto from the <span lang=\"haw\">Â鶹´«Ã½<\/span> State Department of Health to update <span lang=\"haw\">Â鶹´«Ã½<\/span>\u2019s life expectancy trends through 2020. The new report builds on a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/2017\/04\/05\/hawaii-life-expectancies\/\">2017 <abbr>UH<\/abbr> study<\/a> that tracked changes from 1950 to 2010.<\/p>\n<h2>Life expectancy by group<\/h2>\n<p>According to the latest data, <span lang=\"haw\">Â鶹´«Ã½<\/span> residents live an average of 81.9 years, compared to the national average of 77.0 years. However, large differences remain across ethnic groups:<\/p>\n<p><span class=\"blocklink\">Related <em><abbr>UH<\/abbr> News<\/em> story: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/2017\/04\/05\/hawaii-life-expectancies\/\">Who lives longer: <span lang=\"haw\">Â鶹´«Ã½<\/span> life expectancies examined<\/a>, April 5, 2017<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Native Hawaiians: 77.4 years<\/li>\n<li>Other Pacific Islanders: 69.6 years (first time included in the analysis)<\/li>\n<li>Chinese: 88.2 years<\/li>\n<li>Japanese: 84.9 years<\/li>\n<li>Korean: 84.3 years (newly analyzed)<\/li>\n<li>Filipino: 83.4 years<\/li>\n<li>White: 81.8 years<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&ldquo;<span lang=\"haw\">Â鶹´«Ã½<\/span> residents have made steady gains in longevity over the past 70 years,&rdquo; said Wu. &ldquo;However, life expectancy for Native Hawaiians continues to be 10 years less than the life expectancy for the longest-living group. Also, this is the first year we included Other Pacific Islanders in our estimates, and their life expectancy is even lower\u2014almost 19 years less than for the longest-living group.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<h2>Why the gap persists<\/h2>\n<p>The researchers noted that differences in life expectancy are likely linked to social and economic conditions. Compared to Filipinos, Native Hawaiians and Other Pacific Islanders, higher proportions of East Asians and Whites in <span lang=\"haw\">Â鶹´«Ã½<\/span> have college degrees, adequate incomes and own homes.<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;This study underscores the importance of disaggregating public health data so that programs can be developed and tailored for populations most in need of assistance,&rdquo; said Braun. &ldquo;The data also suggest that increasing the standard of living for the groups with lower life expectancies may go a long way to improving their health status and longevity.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p><abbr>UH<\/abbr> M\u0101noa researchers continue to lead statewide efforts to improve health data equity and inform culturally grounded programs that advance the well-being of <span lang=\"haw\">Â鶹´«Ã½<\/span>\u2019s diverse communities.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The study reveals the ongoing health disparities across ethnic groups.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":224203,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[1467,1363,241,158,596,9],"class_list":["post-224078","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-research","tag-manoa-excellence-in-research","tag-manoa-research","tag-public-health","tag-publication","tag-myron-b-thompson-school-of-social-work","tag-uh-manoa","entry","has-media"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/manoa-gnc-family-silhouette-back.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/224078","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/16"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=224078"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/224078\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":224205,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/224078\/revisions\/224205"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/224203"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=224078"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=224078"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=224078"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}