A recent report on life expectancy found wide discrepancies among counties across the country, with people in some areas living, on average, shorter lives in 2009 than in 1989.

In Oregon, the picture was equally mixed. Women in some counties such as Curry, Malheur and Wallowa nearly stagnated, gaining less than a year of life over the last couple of decades. By contrast, Deschutes County women fared relatively well, with a gain of nearly three years, about the national average.

Men in Deschutes County did even better, gaining 5.5 years of life since 1989, the highest of any Oregon group. Across the country, men typically gained more years of life than women.

On average, American men now live to age 76, with women living until nearly 79. In Deschutes County, the average male life expectancy is nearly 78; for women, it’s nearly 82.

That trend, with men gaining more years on average than women, struck researchers who worked on the project, said William Heisel, a spokesman for The Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, a research center at the University of Washington.

Heisel said that researchers found men had been cleaning up their lifestyles over the past couple of decades, but that women had not. “Women have adopted the bad habits, in terms of smoking, eating too much and drinking at levels you used to see in men only,” he said. “That’s causing life expectancy levels to stagnate.”

These types of lifestyle factors largely accounted for the huge discrepancies in life expectancy gains in different counties across the country, Heisel said.

For some people, such as men in New York County — the borough of Manhattan — gains surpassed a decade (women there gained more than seven years.) Heisel said New York has been aggressive in regulating lifestyle factors, such as levying a large tax on cigarettes and ensuring walkable areas of the city.

But for other population groups, including women in many counties in Oklahoma and Alabama, life expectancy actually decreased between 1989 and 2009.

Deschutes County, he said, is an example of a success story. Both men and women gained more years of life than in any other county in Oregon.

“Bend is used as an example because people move there for the lifestyle and bring healthy lifestyles into town,” Heisel said. “They don’t want to do anything that would diminish the health of the environment.”

Deschutes County has attracted active people and improved parks and other open spaces in recent years to help retain them. The county has also been active in monitoring the population for health problems.

Heisel said that other counties with lower life expectancies may be able to take a lesson from Central Oregon. “Someone should ask, ‘What are they doing in Deschutes that we can learn from?’ ”

Crook and Jefferson counties saw gains below the state average. Men in Crook County gained four years between 1989 and 2009 and now live to 76, a gain of four years over 1989; women gained nearly two years and now live to an average of 81.

In Jefferson County, men now live to 74, one of the lowest life expectancies in the state. Women in the county live to an average age of 80.

Life expectancy in Oregon is affected by tobacco use and obesity, said Dr. Katrina Hedberg, an epidemiologist with Oregon’s public health division.

She said that smoking levels in the state were about the same for men and women, and that both had declined since 1996.

Even though smoking is down, she said, smoking-related diseases are still a leading cause of death. The state, she said, has tobacco prevention programs in place to address the issue.

The state does not yet have a handle on the obesity problem, she said. Sixty percent of Oregon adults are either overweight or obese, with the percentage of people moving into the obese category increasing, she said.

Though she called the trend “alarming,” Hedberg said not much has been done in Oregon to address it. “The state does not have any funding to implement a comprehensive obesity program,” said Hedberg.

She said she thought improving health depended largely on the state and counties’ ability to improve such lifestyle factors. “If we could make an impact on tobacco, diet and physical activity, we’d be going a long way.”