Please note that we are judging large areas by looking at single studies that had only a few men in them, and then translating that data with our own inaccurate process. There probably are large errors in that whole process. This info is published “as is,” for your interest.
Of the states where we could find data, Oregon, Florida, and Alabama seem to currently have the highest testosterone! Here’s the current map of testosterone levels. Further down the page, we also have maps of testosterone levels in the USA in the past.
Unfortunately, testosterone in America has been falling since the 80’s and is now at the unhealthy low level of about 459 ng/dl across the country (2015 – 2016) according to the NHANES data, analyzed by us. So none of these states are very high, but some are doing better than others!
Testosterone Levels in Each State
Here’s the data, from 2008 or later, adjusted for age by us to reflect what the average for a full age range from 20 to 90 would be. More info about our adjustment method here.
- Portland, Oregon – 614 ng/dl testosterone
- Gainesville, Florida – 569 ng/dl
- Auburn, Alabama – 542 ng/dl
- Akwesasne Mohawk Nation, on the border of New York – 502 ng/dl (see further down for NYC)
- Boston, Massachusetts – 455 ng/dl
- Spokane, Washington – 430 ng/dl (see further down for Seattle, WA)
- University, Mississippi – 429 ng/dl
- Aurora, Colorado – 427 ng/dl
- Lubbock, Texas – 418 ng/dl (see further down for Galveston, TX)
- Harrisonburg, Virginia – 405 ng/dl
- Norman, Oklahoma – 400 ng/dl
- Beverly Hills, California – 397 ng/dl, but these men already had a somewhat testosterone related issue. So, normal men here may be higher.
- Fort Bragg, North Carolina – 395 ng/dl
- Seattle, Washington – 394 ng/dl
- Galveston, Texas – 392 ng/dl
- Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania – 390 ng/dl
- New York City, New York – 390 ng/dl
- Notre Dame, Indiana – 387 ng/dl
- Ann Arbor, Michigan – 372 ng/dl
- Lawrence, Kansas – 361 ng/dl
- Sioux Falls, South Dakota – 337 ng/dl
Unfortunately, almost all of these states have pretty low testosterone. However Oregon is pretty good, and Florida, Alabama, and the Mohawk nation are not too low. But South Dakota is extremely low. Does the pesticide use lower testosterone in places with industrial agriculture? It’s interesting to note that the Midwest used to have high testosterone, higher than the average in America at the time. You can see a chart of that below. Maybe they were using less harmful pesticides then?
Testosterone has been dropping in the USA since the 80’s
We’ve looked at several hundred studies of testosterone levels in the USA since 1962. The following chart is a line drawn to fit the data we found from those studies. The NHANES studies are shown in green on the chart, and at these points we forced the line to match the NHANES datapoints, since these were from very widespread studies done to find data representative of the whole USA.
It seems clear that testosterone has been falling since the 80’s at least. However, it’s interesting that the testosterone levels in late 1988 to late 1991 (shown as 1990 on the chart) and in 2003-2004 (shown as 2004 on the chart) were essentially the same, and although they were sub-optimal, they weren’t terribly low. 2004 wasn’t that long ago. There was a big testosterone decline event that happened in between 2004 and 2011.
Testosterone in US regions and cities across time
Here’s a contour plot map of testosterone levels in the USA before 1985:
Here’s US testosterone levels from 1985 to 1994.
Here’s the map for 1995 to 2004.
And here’s the current map of US testosterone levels again (from 2008 or later).
Here’s an animation of all four maps, showing US testosterone levels changing from the time before 1985 into the current day.
In the following set of charts, you can see that testosterone in different US locations hasn’t always followed the US average.
It looks like Boston’s testosterone followed the average until it fell below the average around 2000.
Los Angeles may always have been a little under the average, though maybe not by much in the early 2000’s.
Pittsburgh seems to have had higher testosterone than average around 1980, but at some point between then and the late 90’s, it fell to below average, where it has stayed.
The Midwest had higher testosterone than average up until around 2000, when it was about average, then by the 2010’s, it was quite low and less than the average.
Chicago seems to have had higher testosterone than average at both the times we have available.
Seattle looks like it had pretty average testosterone, maybe a bit higher than average, up until the early 80’s. Then it fell to below average by the late 80’s and seems to have stayed below average.
The Midwest is the most interesting of these – it had higher testosterone at a later date than most other regions of the US, but then, somewhere between 2000 and 2010, it rapidly developed some of the lowest testosterone in the US. In 1990, a midwesterner would be one of the highest testosterone Americans, with testosterone levels at least as high as it used to be back in the 1960’s! But in 2010, a midwesterner is one of the lowest testosterone Americans. Is some pesticide causing this?
Sources of all the data can be found here: Testosterone Data, Methods, and Sources