Is there a way to measure “Life expectancy of people most similar to you”? Seems like that would be a more meaningful metric for an individual, rather than lumping them in with every drug addict.
Republicans and poor people are Americans too
Life expectancy in America has declined for two years in a row
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Re: Life expectancy in America has declined for two years in a row
#22Is there a way to measure “Life expectancy of people most similar to you”? Seems like that would be a more meaningful metric for an individual, rather than lumping them in with every drug addict.
it's not about you, it's about us, america. if you want meaningful metrics for you, talk to your doctor.
It’s a vanity metric. Life expectancy gives no actionable information for anyone except for “move to another country”.
Re: Life expectancy in America has declined for two years in a row
#23Lingering effects of the great recession. There is a very strong and well studied relationship between unemployment, economic stress, and drug abuse. These are people who are depressed (clinically, economically, or often both), and they are self medicating. https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2017/04/joblessne... https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3935688/ Unfortunately the media-driven obsession wit…
> Lingering effects of the great recession
Other countries went through the Great Recession, didn't recover as well as the U.S., and are not suffering from the problem. Also, the problem started in the last couple of years while the Great Recession began in 2008 (EDIT: and has since ended, with unemployment low for the last two years).
Re: Life expectancy in America has declined for two years in a row
#24Is there a way to measure “Life expectancy of people most similar to you”? Seems like that would be a more meaningful metric for an individual, rather than lumping them in with every drug addict.
> Is there a way to measure “Life expectancy of people most similar to you”? Sure, to some degree of similarity, if you want to spend effort analyzing the multidimensional demographic and other factors in mortality data; there's very little public policy value in that, so the public organizations that compile public health information to support policy aren't likely to package that up for you, though.
Nor should they, because the process has to be done on an individual basis.
Re: Life expectancy in America has declined for two years in a row
#25Is there a way to measure “Life expectancy of people most similar to you”? Seems like that would be a more meaningful metric for an individual, rather than lumping them in with every drug addict.
> Is there a way to measure “Life expectancy of people most similar to you”? Sure, to some degree of similarity, if you want to spend effort analyzing the multidimensional demographic and other factors in mortality data; there's very little public policy value in that, so the public organizations that compile public health information to support policy aren't likely to package that up for you, though.
They do some demographic breakdowns:
https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/products/databriefs/db293.htm
I wouldn't be that surprised if they also sliced out "substance abuse", because mortality of the using population is likely a useful metric in characterizing the problem.
Re: Life expectancy in America has declined for two years in a row
#26Re: Life expectancy in America has declined for two years in a row
#27Other measures of human welfare that are declining in the U.S.:
* "This year, the number of domestic undergraduate students dropped 224,000"
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/02/us/international-enrollme...
* If nothing is done, the number of Americans with health insurance is expected to decline by millions this year (due to the repeal of the health care tax (I forget the term they used) in the new tax law).
* With CHIP not being funded, the number of children with health insurance also should decline.
Re: Life expectancy in America has declined for two years in a row
#28Lingering effects of the great recession. There is a very strong and well studied relationship between unemployment, economic stress, and drug abuse. These are people who are depressed (clinically, economically, or often both), and they are self medicating. https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2017/04/joblessne... https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3935688/ Unfortunately the media-driven obsession wit…
> Lingering effects of the great recession Other countries went through the Great Recession, didn't recover as well as the U.S., and are not suffering from the problem. Also, the problem started in the last couple of years while the Great Recession began in 2008 (EDIT: and has since ended, with unemployment low for the last two years).
I'd say less the recession and more just a particularly-hard-hitting-in-America trend away from the country's historical industrial base. The 20th century US benefited massively from being on the front lines of modern industrialization and mass production, creating a ton of jobs especially in certain regions. And in areas that haven't been able to replace those jobs as the US economy becomes based in different areas and other countries take over in mass production, that's been a particularly rough blow.
The sense of hopelessness in a truly fucked town is particularly brutal. Retraining and education sound nice, but aren't going to be all that appealing in practice for a lot of people, even if the money is there. So now the US suffers the hardest from the loss of this industry, the other side of the coin of getting to benefit the most from the growth of it. Add in a historical lack of awareness around the dangers of new painkiller drugs... and you've got the recipe for a disaster without needing any judgmental conclusions about a society as a whole.
Britain, another even-earlier industrial power, has similar things going on in some regions, but I'd argue never saw quite the same peaks as the US.
It will be interesting to see what a more controlled country like China does if/when all those jobs that first drew money to the country fully evaporate.
Re: Life expectancy in America has declined for two years in a row
#29Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Lingering effects of the great recession Other countries went through the Great Recession, didn't recover as well as the U.S., and are not suffering from the problem. Also, the problem started in the last couple of years while the Great Recession began in 2008 (EDIT: and has since ended, with unemployment low for the last two years).
I'd say less the recession and more just a particularly-hard-hitting-in-America trend away from the country's historical industrial base. The 20th century US benefited massively from being on the front lines of modern industrialization and mass production, creating a ton of jobs especially in certain regions. And in areas that haven't been able to replace those jobs as the US economy becomes based in different areas…
I'd say it's large reductions in government programs, from health to education to food and welfare programs for the poor. I don't have data, but it's hard to believe that such programs have no effect.
Also, the U.S. moved on from being an industrial economy decades ago, long before most people realize. In Detroit, for example, auto industry jobs began declining in the 1950s.
Re: Life expectancy in America has declined for two years in a row
#30Lingering effects of the great recession. There is a very strong and well studied relationship between unemployment, economic stress, and drug abuse. These are people who are depressed (clinically, economically, or often both), and they are self medicating. https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2017/04/joblessne... https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3935688/ Unfortunately the media-driven obsession wit…
An equivalent (but more so) case was the Russian decline in life expectancy during the 90s for the same reasons.