Constable: Will you live longer if you move?

You started off 2015 with a vow to eat healthier and exercise more. But if you really want to live longer, you might want to think about a change of address.

Of the 102 counties in Illinois, DuPage County has the highest life expectancy, according to the Illinois Morbidity and Mortality Bulletin, released this week by the Illinois Public Health Department. For the first time, the department broke down the numbers by county.

Illinois' statewide life expectancy rose from 74.94 years in 1990 to 79.19 years by 2010. DuPage County residents are expected to live 81.83 years, up from the 77.85 recorded in 1990. The report suggests residents of the Northwest and Western suburbs will live longer than people who live in Chicago or downstate areas.

Lake County ranks second in the state with a life expectancy of 81.34. Kane County (80.96) and McHenry (80.14) were among more than a dozen counties that topped 80. Will County, at 79.85, ranked higher than the state average, and suburban Cook County, at 79.01, finished just a couple of months short of that mark.

DuPage's ranking comes as no surprise to longtime Naperville Mayor George Pradel, a former police officer and enthusiastic booster of DuPage County during his half-century of public service.

"I just went to a 100th birthday party for a fellow in the Army who stood guard for General Eisenhower and Harry Truman," says Pradel, 77, recalling the December soiree at Naperville's Martin Avenue Apartments for resident Kenneth Dorsch, who has considered DuPage County home since 1930. "I felt so good when I left there. Man, I hope I look like that when I'm 100."

The health experts who put together the life-expectancy data note that many components are far more important than pure geography when it comes to when people die.

"The lower overall mortality level is associated with higher income, education, good hospitals and strong public health infrastructure and practice," Melaney Arnold, communications manager for the Illinois Department of Public Health, explains in an email. "All were true for DuPage."

Having finished at or near the top on many lists of best places to live, raise families, start businesses and such, DuPage County also gets mocked by some as being a collection of suburbs so boring that it only seems as if life goes on forever. Even with DuPage County's overall ranking at the top of the life-expectancy chart, it's not quite that simple.

If you are male, you might want to move to Galena in Jo Daviess County, which borders Wisconsin and Iowa in the northwest corner of our state and has the state's highest male life expectancy at 80.66. Male residents in DuPage County are expected to die at 79.7, according to the new report. If you are a woman living in DuPage County, where the female life expectancy is a very fine 83.72, you could be expected to live almost two years longer (85.4) by moving about 80 miles southwest to Putnam County.

The report ranks Chicago separately and offers a touch of good news to go with the bad, Arnold says. In 1990, Chicago sported a life expectancy of 70.51, lowest in the state. In the next 20 years, the life expectancy in the city increased by a whopping 7.26 years, greater than any county improvement.

Suburban Cook County increased its life expectancy by 5.73 years during those two decades, the second-best improvement in the state. Not expected to live as long as females, males did enjoy greater gains in life expectancy during the past two decades. That is "welcome news," Arnold adds, "as it suggests the gender gap in life expectancy is closing."

A few smaller counties, all south of I-80, actually saw life-expectancy figures drop. But the study points out that all the figures are estimates and include margins for error that become "increasingly skewed as the population size decreased." So you can't make too much of the life expectancy in Gallatin County, in the southeast corner of the state that abuts Indiana and Kentucky, falling from 74.80 in 1990 to a state-worst 71.3 in 2010. "Small numbers tend to push the methodology to the limit, and we think that's the case here," Arnold says. "The numbers here may not be as reliable as the larger counties."

Whatever the methodology, Naperville's mayor has a theory about why DuPage County came out on top.

"I think the secret ingredient is love," Pradel says, rattling off services and programs available for senior citizens in his favorite county. "In DuPage County, I think people feel they are loved when they reach that age. That's a great thing, to feel loved and appreciated. That's really the ingredient for people living longer."

Life expectancies

State and collar counties

1990 2010

Illinois 74.94 79.19

DuPage 77.85 81.83

Lake 77.16 81.34

Kane 76.18 80.96

McHenry 76.93 80.14

Will 75.68 79.85

Cook 73.28 79.01 (suburban)

Chicago 70.51 77.77

Source: Illinois Public Health Dept.