Map shows the average life expectancy for people in each state

• The CDC released an annual report comparing life expectancy at the state level.
• Hawaii once again had the highest life expectancy, and Mississippi had the lowest.

Life expectancy has declined again in all 50 states and the District of Columbia, according to an annual report published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The National Vital Statistics Report, published Tuesday, also showed a widening gap between states with the highest and lowest average life expectancies at birth.

The report draws on data from 2020, the most recent we have available. While every state's average took a hit during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic, Hawaii maintained an average life expectancy of 80.7 years.

The Aloha State once again topped the life expectancy report, with the state average only dropping 0.2 years (a couple months) from 2019. Mississippi had the lowest state-level life expectancy: 71.9 years, down from 74.4 years in 2019, according to the CDC's National Center for Health Statistics.

The national average life expectancy for 2020 was 77 years — a marked decrease from the previous year. The study authors said the 1.8 year decline in life expectancy could be explained by the pandemic as well as increases in accidental deaths, such as drug overdoses.

Here's how the rest of the states fared:

People on the West Coast and in New England tend to live longer

States with the highest life expectancy at birth were mostly located on the coasts. More specifically, the Pacific Northwest (Oregon, Washington, Idaho) and California had some of the highest life expectancies at birth.

New England represents another cluster of states with relatively high average life expectancies — and high median household incomes compared to the national average, NBC reported in 2019.

After Hawaii, the states in the highest quartile of the life expectancy chart included Washington, Minnesota, California, Massachusetts, Vermont, Oregon, Utah, and Connecticut.

Southern states had lower life expectancies on average

Most of the states with the lowest average life expectancies were located in the South, according to the 2020 report.

West Virginia, Louisiana, Alabama, Kentucky, Tennessee, Arkansas, Oklahoma, New Mexico, and South Carolina made up the lowest percentile along with Mississippi.

Health risk factors including obesity and smoking tobacco are more prevalent in the South compared to other regions of the US, Insider previously reported. The Southern states also tend to have poorer access to healthcare, which may also contribute to lower life expectancies.