With plenty of talk at the federal level recently about demographics, a recent study by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington shows us maybe we should be talking just as much about how those demographics affect our ability to live long, healthy lives.

The Ohio Capital Journal reports the study showed Native Americans living in Western and Midwestern states have the shortest life expectancy, at 63.4 years. At the other end of the spectrum are Asian Americans nationwide, at 84 years.

Whites living in Appalachia and some Southern states, and black residents of highly segregated cities and the South are likely to have shorter lifespans as well.

It turns out geography is a significant contributing factor to health and quality of life.

In fact, whites who do NOT live in Appalachia have an expected average lifespan 77.2, but those in Appalachia or the southern Mississippi Valley live to be only an average of 71.1.

According to the Capital Journal, a different study looked at policy, poverty, rural isolation and bad habits shortening the lives of those who live in West Virginia. That study projected that the average lifespan of Mountain State residents will be at the bottom of its rankings by 2050.

In fact, one region of West Virginia, Ohio and Kentucky is even more detrimental to long healthy lives for its residents.

“In a single county (Clark County, Kentucky) we see public health issues that are both rural and urban,” Dr. Eric Yazel, health officer for the county and an emergency care physician told the Capital Journal. “As with a lot of areas along the Ohio River Valley, we were hit hard by the opioid epidemic and now have seen a resurgence of methamphetamine, which likely contributed to the (life expectancy) decreases.”

Dr. Donald Warne, a physician and co-director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Indigenous Health, hit the nail on the head when he talked to the Capital Journal about why it is important to learn from the data in these kinds of demographic studies.

“There’s a huge challenge for people who grow up in these settings, but many of us do move forward,” Warne said. “A lot of us wind up working in other places instead of in our home, because there just aren’t the opportunities. We should be looking at economic development as a public health intervention.”

Exactly. If we want young people to believe they can stay in the home state they love without shortening and diminishing the quality of their lives, we’ve got to put in the work — we’ve got to support the economic and quality-of-life initiatives that make it a reality.

Otherwise, we can expect no less than that they will walk away to a state that does.