Study Shows Georgia’s Life Expectancy for 2026

Each year, there's a new life expectancy released for both the United States as a whole and individual states, including Georgia. A bunch of different factors go into figuring out the life expectancy of an area, including lifestyle choices, environmental factors, access to healthcare and income level, to name a few. So, it's not an easy calculation. Figuring out the average life expectancy of an area takes research. So, what's the average life expectancy in the state for 2026?

In a Wednesday, March 18, report, Visual Capitalist released its findings on the average life expectancy in each state. One of their key findings in the report is that life expectancy varies widely across the U.S. In general, according to their data, "states in the Northeast and on the West Coast tend to have higher life expectancies, while many in the South and Appalachia rank lower."

They also presented information from the CDC's National Center for Health Statistics, based on 2022 life tables published in December 2025, which are the most recent publicly available state-level numbers as of March 2026. "The CDC's report uses period life tables, which estimate how long a hypothetical group would live if it experienced the death rates observed in 2022 at every age," they note in the piece.

So, which states were the best for life expectancy? "Among the 50 states and D.C., Hawaii had the highest life expectancy at birth in 2022 at 80.0 years," Visual Capitalist notes. Massachusetts followed, and New Jersey, New York and Connecticut were right behind them. The worst states were many of the Southern and Appalachian states.

For Georgia, the average life expectancy, according to the report, is 75.9 years. The national average is 77.5 years, but more than half of states, 28, didn't make that tally. Also, the amount of time between the highest- and lowest-ranked states was 7.8 years.