Here are the Best and Worst Northeast Ohio Neighborhoods and Suburbs for Life Expectancy

Drugs. Guns. Cars. Heart disease. Cancer. Flu.

These are some of the top causes behind Ohio’s worsening life expectancy rates since the pandemic era pushed the state’s mortality gauge to the bottom half, at 38th, in the 2020 U.S. Census.

A state’s, or county’s, life expectancy rate is an assessment of the area’s political woes and economic health, realms of society that, when looked at with the same lens, tell a deeper narrative of a community’s history. A history that’s often colored Black and white; red or blue; poor and wealthy; pedestrian-friendly or direly dependent on cars.

Such is the story in Cuyahoga County.

Though the geographic area, with 1.2 million people, holds two of the highest life expectancy rates in the whole state, its gap between the best and worst is indicative of the ongoing need for pointed policies to kick in on the local and state levels.

Especially on Cleveland’s East Side, which contains four of the county’s bottom-five census tracts for average years lived: Kinsman (68.1 years), Glenville (67.8), Cudell (66.7), Hough (65.6) and Fairfax (65.4).

That’s nearly two decades of life lived less than those in neighborhoods just a 10- or 15-minute drive away: Pepper Pike (85.4 years), Glenwillow (86), Beachwood (86.2), Gates Mills (86.2) and Shaker Heights (88.6 years).

Longevity, that existential beast at the root of our anxieties, is quite a pain to pin down. Experts know that our genetics, our general environment, our day-to-day lifestyle and our diet choices all play into the vague stew that keeps us alive and living.

And a lot of it revolves around the heart and lungs. As an ongoing study in Contemporary Clinical Trials showed, vast differences in body mass index—in fat percentages—and the heart’s triglyceride levels (a type of fat) and systolic blood pressure (how good the heart is at pumping out blood) were the top differentiators behind longer lives. Also, fewer strokes and heart attacks.

Which could easily be tied to smoking rates. Cleveland has the highest rate of tobacco usage for a midsize city in the entire country. Department of Public Health Chief Dave Margolius has made it his top mission as Cleveland’s surgeon general to slash our high smoking rates. (Margolius’ chief obstacle, it seems, is a City Council concerned that banning flavored vapes could harm small businesses.)

A lot has been written about Mayor Bibb’s pursuit of adopting the Parisian 15-minute city concept here in Cleveland, yet not much from the perspective of longevity. A study in Washington found that, á la the Blue Zones phenomenon, people are likely to live longer in walkable communities—the natural by product of routinely stimulating your respiratory and circulatory systems by using your feet instead of an automobile. You’re more likely to reach 100 if you do.

Bibb and his colleague at the county, Chris Ronayne, have touted the entertainment perks and livability pluses that come with making Cleveland better for cyclists and  pedestrians. However, the leaders haven’t spoken at length about walkability’s inherent linkage to life expectancy. (Ronayne didn’t even mention the 15-minute city in his State of the County speech last week.)

Instead, the policies are slowly seeping out. Four new cycle tracks or bike lanes are set to connect Downtown, Midtown and University Circle by the end of the decade—at Marginal Road on Lake Erie, to the Superior Avenue Midway. Form-based planning code, laws that aim to build housing for walkable neighborhoods, went into effect in three neighborhoods, including Cudell, in July.

As for Downtown, the county’s seat of walkability, ways to promote the neighborhood as a haven for longevity are often missing from the marketing playbooks of civic boosters. Organizations like Downtown Cleveland, Inc., also, choose to highlight the county’s most walkable area as an economic engine instead of a haven for those seeking longer lives. (The CDC doesn’t have data for Downtown’s census tracts.)

The Lakefront Master Plan, hopes for Bedrock’s Riverfront project, for a $2 million revitalized North Coast Harbor—these projects promise to capitalize on Downtown’s lean into walkability, if they are completed as envisioned. And on time.

As for increasing life spans? We’ll have to wait another 10, 20 years.

This article appears in Aug 28 – Sep 10, 2024.