China overtakes U.S. for healthy lifespan: WHO data • Hacker News Board

Re: China overtakes U.S. for healthy lifespan: WHO data

#191

Post by weliketocode » Thu, May 31, 2018, 2:11 PM UTC

Even assuming that this data is flawless, I have a disdain for articles with such surface coverage of a topic.

This article brings you so many questions about the methodology used that it is hard to even begin to consider implications...ie:

What defines healthy life vs non-healthy life? Are current and expected levels of pollution, drug/alcohol dependences, and depression being considered? Is this including some sort of happiness/satisfaction measure? Does this include premature births which could the skew the US numbers lower if China is not including them?

Re: China overtakes U.S. for healthy lifespan: WHO data

#192

Post by OscarCunningham » Thu, May 31, 2018, 2:14 PM UTC

bpicolo wrote: post #188

OscarCunningham wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For a cause of death affecting 40000/2700000 it could only reduce life expectancy from 79 to 77.8, even if all the victims were age 0. EDIT: I suppose it could be lowered a bit more if all those who died were those who would otherwise have lived longest.

> I suppose it could be lowered a bit more if all those who died were those who would otherwise have lived longest. That would average out in a population size of 40k

No, I mean there could be some actual effect that selected for those people.

For example if rich people were culturally more likely to use heroin than poor people, then overdoses would lower the life expectancy more than you would expect, because rich people (when not overdosing on heroin) have better access to medical care and hence longer life expectancy.

Re: China overtakes U.S. for healthy lifespan: WHO data

#193

Post by xstartup » Thu, May 31, 2018, 2:15 PM UTC

Iv wrote: post #155

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> as soon as USA realizes China is better at business than they are This is jingoistic at best. Let's ignore that "goodness at business" is an ambiguous and multidimensional metric. Or that defining a "better" direction is similarly dubious. The argument is simply "anything you can do I can do better." To that, the counterfactual is Ricardian comparative advantage. More broadly, every culture says such things in time…

I think I made it clear that this was a single person's opinion. And obviously biased that is. Still an interesting opinion in light of the recent trade war saber rattlings. But realize that cities like Guangzhou (pop. 25 M) have been trading hubs for much longer than the USA has existed. And some families have had a continuous line of business for centuries. The business culture is very strong there.

What I've experienced in China is that trade can happen without any monetary transaction or contract and the chance of getting screwed over is very low in upper strata.

This is something, I never saw in the US.

Re: China overtakes U.S. for healthy lifespan: WHO data

#194

Post by eric-hu » Thu, May 31, 2018, 2:48 PM UTC

dzdt wrote: post #183

Andre_Wanglin wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Obesity is a sign of improved living conditions that is also a sign of declining living conditions. The former conditions are largely out of the individual's control while the latter conditions are largely in his control. That is, being able to be obese is dictated by the economic vitality of one's country whereas being obese is dictated by one's actions.

But one's actions are also largely dictated by societal living conditions. Many people are extremely time-constrained due to working + commuting + child caring hours. Finding time to exercise or to prepare healthy food is a challenge. Add to this that healthy food is often less easily available and more expensive than unhealthy choices. There is a degree of individual control, but it is society that controls what is…

> Add to this that healthy food is often less easily available and more expensive than unhealthy choices.

It's worth pointing out this isn't true everywhere. In America, cheap fast food is generally unhealthy, yes. As an extreme counter example, a bowl of pho in Vietnam is cheap by local wage standards, has very little grease, and can be ready within 2 minutes of you ordering.

Re: China overtakes U.S. for healthy lifespan: WHO data

#195

Post by eric-hu » Thu, May 31, 2018, 3:15 PM UTC

Nasrudith wrote: post #180

joe_the_user wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a developing nation, China should indeed be experiencing an increased lifespan. But under normal circumstances, China's life expectancy increases should be getting closer and close to the curve of developed nations without actually touching - because all countries should be making progress. So the obvious story here is the actual decrease in US life expectancy, a situation broadly reflecting declining living condi…

Shouldn't there still be diminshing returns to some extent in that model? Say for instance improving drinking water quality. Compared to dysentery tainted water a chlorination system would yield dramatic improvement. Then more sediment filterung, robust filtering to remove metal and plastic pollution, etc. But once you reach the point of "sterile mineral water quality from every tap" you will have been beyond measura…

There are diminishing returns for cleaner water past some point, as you say. Cheap and unhealthy foods is a well known major reason, but there are other major factors too.

American cities place low priority on walkability: it's usually cheaper for the real estate industry to build out rather than build up. Regardless of if that's intentional urban planning or not, it reduces the minimum amount of exercise people get.

Another major reason is infrastructure maintenance. I'll bet the recent leaded water issues in many cities made a non trivial dent in America's longevity stats.

Finally, my personal take is that this may be a side effect of some elements of American society. Maybe it's a combination of it being such a large and diverse country. I grew up in America, but I've been living in smaller, more homogenous Asian societies the last few years. Homogenous demographics have their problems, but it seems like they're generally less willing to screw over their fellow country people for a quick buck. (China is worse than America in this regard, so I added a large population to my hypothesis.)

Re: China overtakes U.S. for healthy lifespan: WHO data

#196

Post by DenisM » Thu, May 31, 2018, 4:06 PM UTC

adventured wrote: post #48

i_feel_great wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pardon my utter ignorance/disbelief - are opioids killing/debilitating that many people to get this result?

60,000+ people are overdosing in the US. The Fentanyl China is dumping into the US killed 20,000 people in 2016, up from 3,000 just a few years prior. By comparison, Cocaine killed 10,000, Heroin killed 15,000, and prescription opiods killed 14,000. The reason it disproportionately impacts life expectancy, is because a lot of the people overdosing are young. If you suddenly have 250,000 people under 40 years of age o…

Fetanyl is a prescription opioid, why did you separate the two?

And what does it have to with China "dumping" it? FDA approved Fetanyl and American doctors are prescribing it. It's on us to reign it in.

Re: China overtakes U.S. for healthy lifespan: WHO data

#197

Post by [deleted] » Thu, May 31, 2018, 4:09 PM UTC

pjc50 wrote: post #161

skookumchuck wrote: post #156

> life expectancy at birth This can be affected by how one defines birth. The US, for example, goes to fairly heroic lengths to save premature babies, and counts those that fail as infant mortality, whereas other countries may classify them as miscarriages. A more portable figure would be life expectancy at one year.

.. but is apparently fairly terrible at saving mothers? https://edition.cnn.com/2017/11/15/opinions/op-ed-christy-tu...

[deleted]

Re: China overtakes U.S. for healthy lifespan: WHO data

#198

Post by seanmcdirmid » Thu, May 31, 2018, 4:26 PM UTC

intopieces wrote: post #189

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The CPC has always had big plans for solving air pollution and smoking problems, ever since I started living there in 2007. Each campaign subsequently failed, so they don’t have a great track record on actually “getting things done.” Maybe it’s different this time, but a healthy dose of skepticism is definitely warranted. Once my wife was pregnant, we had to leave Beijing, there was no way the air pollution problem w…

The Economist says the opposite: https://www.economist.com/the-economist-explains/2018/01/25/...

Are you saying that this article makes the claim that the government has successfully dealt with the problem or just that the current campaign seems to be effective?

Re: China overtakes U.S. for healthy lifespan: WHO data

#199

Post by dv_dt » Thu, May 31, 2018, 5:16 PM UTC

brownbat wrote: post #170

Andre_Wanglin wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>So the obvious story here is the actual decrease in US life expectancy, a situation broadly reflecting declining living conditions in the US. True, however complicated by the obesity pandemic. Some informed estimates posit that by 2030 the majority of Americans will not be merely overweight but outright obese. [0] That alone is surely sufficient to retard and revert the US life expectancy. [0] https://www.ncbi.nlm.n…

Recent declines are largely attributable to opioids. After that, suicides and alcohol are major contributors. https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2017/9/20/16338996/dr... But yeah, the opioid epidemic is so large it's noticeably shifting overall mortality stats. Obesity related mortality actually improved from 2000 to 2015, though possibly as a result of better interventions, I'm not sure.

I sort of feel like the contributors are a cluster of symptomatic problems all rooted in inequality, from lack of universal healthcare, to more people in prison than any nation (where prisoners then get substandard health care), to underfunding of wages to an increasing underclass. It seems we have this storm of rising problems in the US.

Re: China overtakes U.S. for healthy lifespan: WHO data

#200

Post by CryptoPunk » Thu, May 31, 2018, 6:04 PM UTC

dis-sys wrote: post #142

CryptoPunk wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And China spends very little on healthcare, especially through its public sector: http://www.oecd.org/els/health-systems/Briefing-Note-CHINA-2... So other factors are probably responsible.

doctors in the west get paid top $, while Chinese dentists/doctors are getting paid much lower, e.g. far lower than PHP programmers.to give you a quick example: it costs up to $1,000-$2,000 to remove a bad wisdom tooth in Sydney, it is $20-30 in the biggest dentist hospital in Shanghai.

If you click the link you'll see that China has fewer doctors and nurses per capita:

>>With 1.6 physicians per 1000 population in 2012, China had much fewer doctors per capita than the OECD average (3.2 physicians). The number of nurses per capita in China (1.8 nurses per 1000 population in 2012) is also much lower than the OECD average (8.8 nurses).

As for the affordability of dental services, would you say that's an argument for deregulation and lowering of mandatory quality standards?