U.S. life expectancy

Found at the Washington Post today, which also has an interactive graphic where you can sort life expectancy at a county-by-county level according to sex and race.

I'm not sure what to make of the data.  I can see on the map Hidalgo County, Texas (on the Rio Grande) coded in dark red for "long life expectancy," but that's where my dad spent his retirement years in a trailer park full of old people.  The same effect is evident in the South Florida coastal cities.  I'm not sure it's a map of relative health so much as a map of old/young populations.