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Probably helpful to realize that the lifespan is determined more than just one metric, such as healthcare. Cultural differences between different regions likely plays a significant effect. For instance, my guess is diet leading to obesity helps to drag down life expectancy in the regions where the life expectancy is lower:

http://www.cdc.gov/obesity/data/animated_map_slides/map26.jp...

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Not just cultural differences. Things like car accidents and murders also play a disproportionate role.

If nation A has 60 people living to 79, and nation B has 59 people living to 80 and 1 person being murdered at 20, A and B have the same mean life expectancy (of 79).

Though I suppose you could call things like murders and road safety "cultural".

Exactly, this is likely the most meaningful statistical correlation. Here is a map by county: http://www.americanobesity.org/obesityInAmerica.htm

Obesity has been found to take 10yrs off lifespan.

Also, smoking: http://labs.slate.com/articles/cigarette-map/ (click tab to see by county).

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