The life expectancy for New Yorkers increased more than that of any other state between 1991 and 2004, according to a report to be released today, mostly because of medical innovation in the area of HIV and AIDS treatment.

Life expectancy for New York residents grew by 4.3 years between 1991 and 2004, according to a report released by the Manhattan Institute’s Center for Medical Progress. Nationwide, life expectancy increased an average of 3.88 years during that time. Life expectancy in New York, at 79.2 years, ranks 11th nationwide, according to the report. Hawaii has the highest life expectancy at 81.3 years.

Researchers said that, because of the state’s high number of HIV and AIDS patients, life expectancy rates in New York may have benefited disproportionately from innovations in anti-retroviral drugs. “In the mid-1990s, a number of highly effective anti-retroviral drugs were introduced which very significantly extended the lives of HIV/AIDS patients,” the study’s author, Frank Lichtenberg, said. Mr. Lichtenberg, a professor at Columbia University’s School of Business, also attributed New Yorkers’ longevity to the relatively large increase in the use of new pharmaceutical drugs in New York’s Medicaid program. Some states restricted the use of such drugs, he said.

“We know that health expenditure is going up, and especially drug expenditure,” he said. “But I think in order to have an intelligent discussion of that, we need to look at the costs of medical innovation, but also the benefits.”

Some, however, pointed out the costs associated with living longer. “While people are living longer, it doesn’t mean that they are living more healthy,” a senior gerontologist at the MetLife Mature Market Institute, Kathy O’Brien, said. She said as people live longer, they may need more care. “The costs for long-term care are significant to the individual who needs to pay the bills,” she said.

Living longer can mean outliving one’s bank accounts and, in response to that anxiety, three years ago New York Life Insurance established a retirement income unit that focuses on longevity, a senior vice president at New York Life Insurance, Michael Gallo, said.

“It’s boiling down to people losing a lot of their traditional sources of guaranteed lifetime income,” Mr. Gallo, who heads the unit, said.

“Certainly we have seen a graying of the patient population,” the chairman of the geriatric department at Mount Sinai Medical Center, Albert Siu, said.

According to Dr. Siu, his department has added educational programs to prepare clinicians for treating an aging baby boomer generation, the first members of which will become eligible for Medicare in 2011.

Citing an example of someone who has been diagnosed not only with diabetes but also with dementia, Dr. Siu said: “Your patient is no longer just a patient. You have to be thinking about the complexity of the regimen in a different way.”