Is Life expectancy lower for city dwellers? It depends!

The last 40 or so years has seen a widening gap between city and rural dwellers in terms of life expectancy. These have been attributed to access to good health care services, environmental and social factors. Many may argue that the rural areas are healthier to live in – away from congested cities and all its troubles.

The answer is neither yes or no it simply depends on which part of the world you live in.

For example, in the US several studies have concluded that city dwellers tend to live longer than rural dwellers not only that, the gap is widening. This is in part because resources are diverted more to urban areas and rural communities lack advanced medical care that can save life in case of medical emergencies, acute trauma or road traffic accidents compared to the city. Rural areas are also occupied by poorer people and with poverty comes a catalog of diseases largely attributed to environmental factors like obesity, lung cancer etc.

If you are a city dweller and you live in the less developed areas of the world like Africa and some parts of Asia and Middle East- sorry the findings are just the opposite. People who move to the cities are exposed to more health risks as compared to those living in rural areas, African Population and Health Research Center (APHRC) has said. Sadly, the expectations are huge in Africa for people migrating to cities. They expect to get jobs and better lives, however just about the opposite happens. Poor infrastructure, poorly maintained schools, poor garbage management, lack of portable water to drink and poor sanitation as well as poor drainage systems characterize most of these cities. People are exposed to many health hazards too. There is also a lot of pressure from traffic jams and air pollution causing health complications. A lot of city residents also live in the slums with lack of security and health problems.

The W.H.O has reported that for the first time in human history, the majority of world’s population is living in urban areas and this proportion continues to grow. Since the life expectancy of city dwellers in developing countries is poor can this then be a factor in a country’s life expectancy. Compare a life expectancy of 81.48 in Canada; 80.17 in The U.K, 78.29 in the U.S.A with 66.35 in Pakistan, 63.17 in Togo, 52.02 in Nigeria and 49.41 in South Africa.

If more people in cities in the developing countries move back to rural areas will it affect this statistics?

So its crunch time guys, pick and choose- city or rural?