Life expectancy, or the estimated years of life for a person or group of people, has increased over the years, but is still surprisingly lower than expected in places like the United States. America ranks twenty-fourth on the life expectancy list, behind Japan, Australia, France, Spain and Italy. What causes this disparity in rankings and statistics in an advanced industrialized society like the United States? There are important statistical factors that influence the United States' ranking in global life expectancy, involving educational attainment, poverty, race, and gender. The different groups of people living in the United States negatively influence health statistics, influencing education and income levels, race, and geography. In most of the world, women outlive men. They live on average 6 years longer than the male gender for an average of 80.1 years although an average of 12 years in common in Belarus, an Eastern European country (Tischler 2007). However, life expectancy has increased almost equally between genders, with an increase of 9.3 years for women and 9.4 for men. Men are three times more likely to die from injuries, homicide, or suicide than women (Tischler 2007). Men have higher rates of accidents (49% for males compared to 21% for females), heart disease (11% for males to 9% for females), HIV (10% for males to 7% for females), suicide (20% for females) for males to 5% for females) and homicide (19% for males to 6% for females), however, females have a higher rate high rate of cancer (from 17% for females to 10% for males) (Tischler 2007). Oddly enough, left-handed men have a higher accident rate than right-handed men and are also estimated to have a shorter life expectancy than right-handed males (Coren 1992). Men are... in the center of the card... through healthier habits. The United States is made up of many different groups of people, and health statistics include groups such as African Americans, Native Americans, and inner-city populations, all of whom are known to have severely poor developing health. Health problems such as HIV, heart disease, cancer and obesity affect a larger percentage of the population than in other similarly developed countries such as Japan, Australia, France, Spain and Italy. This lowers the expected life expectancy of a developed country like the United States and brings the ranking to twenty-fourth in the world. Works Cited Tischler, H.L. (2007). Socialization and development. Introduction to Sociology (9th ed., pp. 99-101). Belmont, CA: Wadsworth/Thomson Learning.Coren, S. (1992). Left-handedness syndrome: causes and consequences of left-handedness. New York: Free Press