Researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have found that residing in the city actually adds an extra year to someone’s life. The study discovered that adults over 65 who move from rural to urban areas adds just over one year to their lives. Currently, the average lifespan for an adult in the UK is 81.3 years.
“There is a substantively important causal effect of where you live as an elderly adult on mortality and life expectancy across the United States,” explained Amy Finkelstein, co-author of a newly published paper detailing the findings.
“Whilst an area’s ‘health capital’ – the local population’s propensity to be obese, smoke or suffer from chronic health diseases – plays an important role in longevity, the authors of the study also sought to investigate the environmental factors of metropolitan areas.”
The authors estimated that the nature of available medical care in cities would become a key factor in how long people lived for. Other possible factors considered were pollution, crime rates and traffic safety.
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