Overall, Americans are expected to live an average of 78.7 years, the report published Thursday by the National Center for Health Statistics, a branch of the CDC, found.
The state with the lowest life expectancy was West Virginia, whose residents live an average of 74.4 years.
Rounding out the bottom 10 states were Mississippi (74.6), Alabama (75.1), Kentucky (75.3), Tennessee (75.5), Louisiana (75.6), Oklahoma (75.6), Arkansas (75.6), South Carolina (76.5) and Missouri (76.6).
On the other end of the spectrum, Hawaii fared the best – with an average life expectancy of 81 years – followed by California (80.8), New York (80.5), Minnesota (80.5), Connecticut (80.4), Massachusetts (80.1), Washington state (80), Colorado (80), New Jersey (79.8) and Rhode Island (79.8).
Explaining the lower average life expectancy in the southern states, the researchers pointed to gender demographics.
“With a few exceptions, the states with the largest sex differences are those with lower life expectancy at birth, while the smallest sex differences are found mostly among states with higher life expectancy,” the researchers wrote in the study published in the National Vital Statistics Reports.
Women are more likely to outlive men by five years, the report said — with men averaging 76.2 years overall while women averaged 81.2 years.
