ATLANTA » For people 65 years old and living in Hawaii, the odds are they will live another 21 years, and for all but five of those years, they will likely be in good health.

Hawaii tops the charts in the government’s first state-by-state look at how long Americans age 65 can expect to live, on average, and how many of those remaining years will be healthy ones. Retirement-age Mississippians fared worst, with only about 171⁄2 more years remaining, nearly seven of them in poorer health.

U.S. life expectancy has been growing steadily for decades and is now nearly 79 for newborns. The figures released Thursday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimate life expectancy for people 65 years old and what portion will be free of illnesses and disabilities.

Sarah Yuan, associate specialist at the University of Hawaii Center on the Family, welcomed the state’s high ranking, particularly the "healthy life expectancy" measure.

"Longer life doesn’t mean a good quality of life," she said. "Healthy life expectancy is a modified measure that reflects how healthy we are as we age."

"I think that is a very meaningful measure, more than the traditional one. The fact that on both measures Hawaii is ranked at the top, that’s a good sign."

The high rankings could be tied to a range of factors, including ethnic composition, good weather, access to health care and relatively low obesity rates.

Yuan noted that a previous study analyzed life expectancy by ethnicity in Hawaii.

"We tend to have a larger population of (people with) Japa­nese and Chinese background," Yuan said. "It turns out that the longest life expectancy is Chinese, and the second is Japa­nese. Down at the bottom is the Hawaiians."

"When you have this overall life expectancy numbers, you think everything is good, but there are wide discrepancies among different ethnic groups," she said.

Mild weather also plays a role in keeping residents active and healthy.

"In Hawaii, because we have year-round good weather, people tend to be able to walk around more, do more yardwork," Yuan said. "That has been confirmed with other exercise data we see usually every year."

The World Health Organization keeps "healthy life expectancy" statistics for nearly 200 countries, using the numbers to determine the most sensible ages to set retirement and benefits. The CDC study is the first to make estimates for all states.

Overall, Americans who make it to 65 have about 19 years of life ahead of them, including nearly 14 in relatively good health, the CDC estimated. Nationally, women at 65 can expect nearly 15 more years of healthy life. Men that age can expect about 13 years.

In Hawaii the average 65-year-old can anticipate good health until age 81 and expect to live to age 86. Women are expected to stay healthy until age 82, two years longer than men. The overall life expectancy for 65-year-old females in Hawaii is 88, four years more than men, the study found.

Southern states, which had lower numbers, tend to have higher rates of smoking, obesity, diabetes, heart disease and other illnesses. They also have problems that affect health, like less education and more poverty.

These are issues that build up through a lifetime, so it’s doubtful that moving to Hawaii from the South later in life will suddenly increase more healthy years, experts said.

After Mississippi, Kentucky, West Virginia and Ala­bama had the lowest numbers for both life expectancy and healthy life expectancy. States with the best numbers included Florida — a magnet for healthy retirees — as well as Connecticut and Minnesota.

The estimates were made using 2007 through 2009 data from the census, death certificates and telephone surveys that asked people to describe their health.

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Star-Advertiser reporter Susan Essoyan and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

On the net:

» CDC report: www.cdc.gov/mmwr