David Hayes-Bautista, who’s spent 40 years studying the health and culture of Latinos in the United States, said the group can be considered a model for longer, engaged lives. Latinos in the U.S. enjoy nearly 3 1/2 years of longer life expectancy — 81.8 years — than non-Hispanic whites, at 78.5 years, he said. “That’s surprising because they have less income as a population, less education, lower access to care, but they manage to live 3 1/2 years longer,” he said.