While life expectancy declined nationally in 2015, it is not known whether it also dropped in Massachusetts. The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report that revealed the national decline did not include state-by-state data, and the most recent information available from Massachusetts health authorities goes up to only 2014.
The state data show life expectancy increasing steadily in Massachusetts for decades, and then plateauing in 2010. In each year from 2010 to 2014, life expectancy was either 80.8 or 80.9 years.
Massachusetts has long had one of the highest life expectancies in the country. In 2013, the Measure of America report, a compilation of health and education statistics by the Social Science Research Council, ranked Massachusetts fifth-highest in life expectancy, behind Hawaii, Minnesota, Connecticut, and California.
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The federal report found that, nationwide, infants born in 2015 are expected to live to age 78.8 — a decline of 0.1 year from 2014. A decline in nationwide life expectancy at birth hasn’t happened in the United States since 1993.
Leah Samuel of the STAT staff contributed to this report. Felice J. Freyer can be reached at felice.freyer@globe.com.