Large disparities have long existed between the life expectancies<\/a> of Black Chicagoans and other city residents \u2014 gaps that city health officials have attributed to long-term disinvestment in predominantly Black neighborhoods and systemic racism. Factors such as access to health care, education, nutritious food, neighborhood safety, environmental conditions, employment, physical activity and stable housing can contribute to life expectancy.<\/p>\nThe situation improved slightly in 2023, with the gap between Black and white Chicagoans narrowing from 11.4 years to 10.6 years.<\/p>\n
In 2023, Black Chicagoans had an average life expectancy of 71.8 years; white Chicagoans had an average life expectancy of 81.3 years; Latino Chicagoans had an average life expectancy of 82.7 years; and Asian and Pacific Islander Chicagoans had an average life expectancy of 86.8 years.<\/p>\n
\u201cLife expectancy tends to change fairly slowly, so an almost one-year narrowing of a gap, if that were sustainable over time, to continue to drop at that rate that would be very remarkable,\u201d said Dr. Marc Gourevitch, a professor in the Department of Population Health at New York University medical school and a leader of the City Health Dashboard, a public database, speaking of the gap narrowing between Black and white Chicagoans.<\/p>\n
A 10-year gap between the life expectancies of different racial groups in a city is striking but not uncommon across the country, Gourevitch said.<\/p>\n
In Chicago, nearly half of that gap is because of chronic diseases such as heart disease and cancer. Homicides, opioid overdoses and accidents also contribute to that gap, according to the city health department.<\/p>\n
Ige noted that gun violence in Chicago decreased by 33% between 2024 and 2025, and opioid overdose deaths dropped 38% between 2023 and 2024.<\/p>\n
Chasms also persisted between Chicago neighborhoods, according to the health department. In 2023, residents of Chicago\u2019s downtown Loop neighborhood had an average life expectancy of 87.3 years, while residents of the West Garfield Park neighborhood had an average life expectancy of 66.6 years \u2014 a more-than-20-year difference.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve had disinvestment when it comes to health care options and food options,\u201d said Mike Tomas, executive director of Garfield Park Community Council.<\/p>\n
Tomas said the council has been working to improve access to healthy foods, citing farmers markets held twice a month and the reopening of the Save A Lot grocery store in West Garfield Park.<\/p>\n
But he said years of disinvestment in the community have taken a toll.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhile the overall number is good, and we\u2019re encouraged by that,\u201d Tomas said of the citywide improvement in average life expectancy, \u201cwe can\u2019t lose focus on these five priority neighborhoods and the resources and investment that they need.\u201d<\/p>\n
West Garfield Park is one of five neighborhoods the city health department is prioritizing in its Healthy Chicago 2025 Strategic Plan, which aims to address life expectancy gaps. The other neighborhoods include East Garfield Park, Englewood, West Englewood and North Lawndale.<\/p>\n
In those neighborhoods, the health department is trying to focus on causes of the gap, which include chronic disease, violence, substance use, infectious disease, infant and maternal health and mental health.<\/p>\n
A coalition of health care and community organizations called West Side United has also been working in recent years<\/a> to eliminate the life expectancy gaps in Chicago through a variety of programs and initiatives.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Chicago\u2019s average life expectancy bounced back to 78.7 years in 2023, nearly hitting its prepandemic peak \u2014 though…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":216664,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5124],"tags":[64,960,210,5386,1818,1370,50],"class_list":{"0":"post-216663","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-chicago","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-chicago","10":"tag-health","11":"tag-il","12":"tag-illinois","13":"tag-latest-headlines","14":"tag-news"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115182458955153876","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/216663","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=216663"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/216663\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/216664"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=216663"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=216663"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=216663"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}