Data Visualization Lab · ACAD 274

Does Where You Live Predict How Long You Live?

This lab uses America's Health Rankings and CDC BRFSS data to argue that behavioral risk factors — obesity, physical inactivity, and smoking — are not randomly distributed across the U.S., and neither are their consequences. Three charts, one argument: geography concentrates both risk and early death.

The Dataset

Original Data — U.S. State Health Statistics (20 States)

20 states were selected spanning all U.S. regions, with a deliberate spread from lowest to highest behavioral risk. Variables tracked: obesity rate, physical inactivity rate, smoking rate, and life expectancy at birth. Source: America's Health Rankings + CDC BRFSS, 2022–2023 estimates.

Google Sheets data table — state health statistics

Chart 01

Obesity Rate by State, Ranked — A Regional Fault Line

Chart 1: Obesity Rate by State

Analysis

Sorting states by obesity rate immediately reveals a regional pattern — not a random scatter. Every state above 35% obesity is in the South or Appalachian corridor: Mississippi leads at 40.8%, followed closely by West Virginia, Arkansas, Louisiana, and Kentucky. Western states — Colorado (23.8%), Hawaii (23.0%) — anchor the other end. The 17.8-point gap between the highest and lowest is enormous in public health terms. This chart establishes the first premise of the argument: risk is geographically concentrated before we even look at outcomes.

Chart 02

Physical Inactivity vs. Life Expectancy — Movement Predicts Longevity

Chart 2: Physical Inactivity vs Life Expectancy

Analysis

This scatter plot connects behavior directly to outcome. The negative correlation is clear and consistent: as the share of adults reporting no leisure-time physical activity climbs, life expectancy falls. Mississippi and West Virginia cluster in the bottom-right — high inactivity, low longevity. Hawaii and Utah sit in the upper-left. States where more than 30% of adults are physically inactive average life expectancies below 75.5 years — nearly seven years shorter than the most active states. The dashed trendline confirms this is not noise. The chart argues that movement, at the population level, is one of the clearest predictors of how long a community lives.

Chart 03

Smoking Rate vs. Life Expectancy — An Inverse Mirror

Chart 3: Smoking Rate vs Life Expectancy

Analysis

When states are sorted from highest to lowest smoking rate, life expectancy forms a near-mirror image — creating a visual X-shape that makes the trade-off impossible to miss. West Virginia (25.2% smoking, 74.8 yrs) sits at the top-left; Utah (8.9% smoking, 81.5 yrs) anchors the right. The bars fall while the line rises. States in the highest smoking quartile average 75.6 years of life; those in the lowest quartile average 81.2 — a 5.6-year difference driven largely by a single preventable behavior. This chart closes the argument: the same states that lead in risk factors pay the highest cost in years of life lost.