Fairfax County Men Top Life Expectancy Charts

Fred Johnson, a Mount Vernon resident has survived many things; World War II, a bout with cancer, covering Cuba and Vietnam as a reporter and a marauding elephant at Kenya’s Amboseli National Park.

Long retired, Johnson starts his day at midmorning to avoid traffic aggravations and spends his day volunteering at the Arlington National Cemetery. His wife of 66 years volunteers at a nearby park and sometimes they go to the theater together.

At 89 years old, Johnson is part of a demographic trend researchers say is growing in Fairfax County. A new study Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington. found that men in Fairfax County have the longest life expectancy in America with an average of 81.1 years.

Women, who tended to outlive men in every county by an average of five years, had a life expectancy of 83.8 in Fairfax County.

Researchers found that women in the county gained a 3.7 years in life expectancy from 1987 to 2007 against a national average of 2.4 years over the same two decades.

The study, "Falling behind: life expectancy in US counties from 2000 to 2007 in an international context", was published last month in the journal Population Health Metrics.

William Heisel, a spokesperson for the research group, said Fairfax was faring better compared to other counties that either stagnated or regressed in women’s life expectancy.

“We didn’t expect to see this acceleration in the sheer number of counties where life expectancies for women have either stagnated or gone backwards,” said Heisel.

He said that from 1987 to 1997, 227 counties lost years in the average life expectancy for women. But from 1997 to 2007, the number had jumped to 737 counties.

 “That’s a big increase, and there’s no good reason for women in that many counties to be doing so poorly.”

Shauna Severo, Assistant Director of Patient Care Services at the county health department said that Virginia Department for the Aging and the US Census Bureau both estimated the county will experience a 24% increase in its population 60 years and older from 1990 to 2030.

Heisel said life expectancy in American counties has less to do with demographic factors such as rural versus urban or high income versus low income as one might think.

“It’s about what is happening at the community level, and some communities clearly have done a better job of creating a healthier culture that has driven down the key risk factors for an early death,” Heisel said. “This might be due in part to strong public policies, such as smoking bans in restaurants.”

Heisel said people moving into some areas of the country have created a demand for better lifestyle options such as biking trails, parks or healthier menu options at restaurants. As developers and community planners strive meet that demand, they provide a healthier standard of living options for an entire community.

Johnson cracks a smile upon hearing the study’s results. He says researchers could be on to something. Driving through the hustle and bustle of Washington D.C. he thinks he wouldn’t be able to withstand the demands of modern technology or the desire to keep up with the Jones’s.

“Being older we do not feel any of the pressure that people seem to who are younger than us,” he said. “We set our own pace.  It is a very non pressurized way of life.”

Still, he says, there is an advantage that he and his wife have enjoyed that he is not quite sure researchers can quantify.

“Luck,” he says smiling. “I do not know how to explain good luck but my wife and I have enjoyed it. Where it comes from we know not.”