Americans with North Korea's Life Expectancy

This is a very troubling statistic, from Catherine Rampell at Economix:

The average life span for African-Americans in Louisiana today (72.2 years) is shorter than that of Colombians, Vietnamese and Venezuelans. The average life span of an African-American in New Orleans is 69.3 years, nearly as low as life expectancy in North Korea.

From the American Human Development Project's "Portrait of Louisiana."

This article available online at:

http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2009/09/americans-with-north-koreas-life-expectancy/26827/