Slashdot Mirror
US Life Expectancy Can Vary By 20 Years Depending On Where You Live (npr.org)
After analyzing records from every U.S. county between 1980 and 2014, Christopher Murray, head of the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington, and his team found that life expectancy can vary by more than 20 years from county to county. "In counties with the longest lifespans, people tended to live about 87 years, while people in places with the shortest lifespans typically made it only about 67," reports NPR. From the report: The discrepancy is equivalent to the difference between the low-income parts of the developing world and countries with high incomes, Murray notes. For example, it's about the same gap as the difference between people living in Japan, which is among countries with the longest lifespans, and India, which has one of the shortest, Murray says. The U.S. counties with the longest life expectancy are places like Marin County, Calif., and Summit County, Colo. -- communities that are well-off and more highly educated. Counties with the shortest life expectancy tend to have communities that are poorer and less educated. The lowest is in Oglala Lakota County, S.D., which includes the Pine Ridge Native American reservation. Many of the other counties with the lowest life expectancy are clustered along the lower Mississippi River Valley as well as parts of West Virginia and Kentucky, according to the analysis. There's no sign of the gap closing. In fact, it's appears to be widening. Between 1980 and 2014, the gap between the highest and lowest lifespans increased by about two years. The reasons for the gap are complicated. But it looks like the counties with the lowest lifespans haven't made much progress fighting significant health problems such as smoking and obesity. The study has been published in the journal JAMA Internal Medicine.
Yeah I don't want to keep a fat chain smoker alive for a few extra years. Thank you Trump!
Look here the largest cluster of lagging lifespan is neatly outlined by the Bible Belt. Further if you read the actual journal abstract you would find
Question
Are inequalities in life expectancy among counties in the United States growing or diminishing, and what factors can explain differences in life expectancy among counties?
Findings
In this population-based analysis, inequalities in life expectancy among counties are large and growing, and much of the variation in life expectancy can be explained by differences in socioeconomic and race/ethnicity factors, behavioral and metabolic risk factors, and health care factors.
Meaning
Policy action targeting socioeconomic factors and behavioral and metabolic risk factors may help reverse the trend of increasing disparities in life expectancy in the United States.
Thus the actual journal describes it as a variety of causes, not smoking and drinking. The slashdot summary is moronic clickbait - dare I say "fake news" - by insunuating that these people deserve to die solely because of their bad choices. But don't let me spoil the hackneyed rebublican narrative.
If you'd RTFA, you'd have the answer to your question!
Socioeconomic and race/ethnicity factors, behavioral and metabolic risk factors, and health care factors explained 60%, 74%, and 27% of county-level variation in life expectancy, respectively. Combined, these factors explained 74% of this variation. Most of the association between socioeconomic and race/ethnicity factors and life expectancy was mediated through behavioral and metabolic risk factors.
I don't respond to AC's.
I'm sure the new republican health care plan will provide more comprehensive coverage at much lower costs thus solving americas poor living in third world conditions. /s
For those who want a good visualization, here is the US map of the study results,
and here's the study, click on the "figures and tables" link in the overly complex mishmash of a web page for visualizations and caption explanations.
You need to learn to surrender with more grace. But I'll accept this much... Good luck!
Fine if you want to play that. Then GOP USA=Sudan & Somalia. They have no government at all and anarchy, warlords, and pirates are the result. Therefore that is the alternative to big government if you want to go deep end with analogies.
Both countries are a libertarian paradise.
http://saveie6.com/
What saved other tribes was opening casinos. I see they have casinos as well, why can't they make money like the other tribes?
Because casino's need customers, and they are literally in the middle of nowhere, with Rapid City ( 76,000 ) being the only city of any size relatively nearby. The other towns aren't even one horse towns, they all share a large dog. At least a four hour drive to any other cities the size of Rapid City.
They are US citizens and they can leave anytime. Furthermore, poverty is not a barrier to picking up and leaving. What's actually going on is that people with initiative and skills do leave the reservations and join mainstream society. That leaves behind the people who are incapable of leaving because they lack the skills, intelligence, or initiative. And that's what you're seeing.
These communities are already getting massive amounts of help. For example, per pupil spending is 50% higher (!) for Native Americans than US average, and the federal government interferes in almost every decision Native Americans on reservations make.
What these communities actually need is for the US government and the rest of the country to treat them like adult American citizens, with all the rights and obligations that entails, instead of trying to turn them in to a political cause or a cultural and linguistic museum exhibit, or to project hippie back-to-nature fantasies on them.
Germany doesn't favour free enterprise as a randlicker would recognise it. They have commie things like laws against unfair dismissal and there's even worker representation on company boards. I'm not sure if you're allowed to work 60 hours a week with no extra pay even if you want to.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
LMGTFY
(Wikipedia page entitled "List of countries by life expectancy")
The US is behind every country in Western Europe and neatly bracketed by Chile and Cuba.
... grumble, grumble, grumble, mutter, mutter, Millenium... Hand... Shrimp, I tol' 'em, I tol' 'em.
I'm not sure if you're allowed to work 60 hours a week with no extra pay even if you want to.
You are not allow. The EU maximum is 48 hours per week on average over a certain period, typically 15-20 weeks. There are exclusions for certain jobs like military, live-in servants etc.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
"the push to keep the ACA around would have made it clear that "progressives" want everyone to live regardless of personal wealth"
That may have been how it was sold to the poor electorate, but not how it worked out in reality.
Every single person I know that bought an ACA plan complained about the deductibles. Sure, the monthly premiums were within reach, but $6000 to $10000 per year in deductibles ensured that the policy was never used.
Sure, some things were covered by the ACA, but if you talked about any other health issues during your "healthy visit" those became billable expenses that hit your annual deductible.
For those that could afford the premiums, the ACA became medical disaster insurance. Many could not even afford the premiums and opted to take their chances on the penalty at tax time.
The ACA was doomed in a couple of ways - it was a financial disaster for insurers, and it did not really help poor people get continual basic care - the stuff that prevents expensive diseases later on.