Why Rural Brits Outlive Rural Americans

The motto of Rutland, England is multum in parvo: Much in little. Rutland is England’s smallest county, 16.3 miles from north to south, home to quaint cottages, green hills, and the World Championship of Nurdling (competitors throw pennies into a narrow hole in a wooden bench).

As befits its motto, tiny Rutland has played an outsized role in two significant medical studies, both of which focus on life expectancy. The newest, from the University of Liverpool, compared lifespans in rural Rutland to those in four cities: Liverpool, Manchester, Bolton, and Leeds. Rutlandites live longer than their urban counterparts, the study found. The study is a sequel—175 years later—of a pioneering bit of public health research from the Victorian era: In 1842, social reformer Edwin Chadwick found that laborers in Rutland lived longer than tradesmen in the same quartet of cities.