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Life expectancy in the U.S. varies greatly by region

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Re: Life expectancy in the U.S. varies greatly by region

#51

Post by hotpotamus »

portmanteur wrote: post #42
rgmerk wrote: post #19

Nobody has explicitly connected the other damning life expectancy visualisation on Twitter yet, so it’s worth linking to it: https://twitter.com/jburnmurdoch/status/1641799627128143873?... The difference in life expectancy between the UK and the US is mostly down to young Americans dying from guns, drugs, and cars; my guess is much of the differences within the US are attributable to the same factors.

These sorts of charts are meaningless without being broken down by race. I did a quick search for "US Mortality Rate by Race" and I found CDC documents showing that African Americans have roughly 35% higher age-adjusted mortality than non-Hispanic Whites [0], and have on average 7 year shorter life expectancy at birth [1]. When people show maps where the American South has seemingly worse outcomes than the rest of th…

Why does race need to be brought into it?

Re: Life expectancy in the U.S. varies greatly by region

#52

Post by pfannkuchen »

epgui wrote: post #8
dfxm12 wrote: post #2

I saw all the doom and gloom tweets, but didn't realize most of the cause boils down to policy decisions. Call your elected officials and tell them you don't want to die an avoidable early death.

I mean, what else could be the cause? One way or another, it'll come down to some insane policy decision or other. And this "states vs federal" power struggle in America (not my country) basically guarantees that there will be variance across states. The division of powers made sense in the old days, but in today's day and age it's crazy that there are not more standards set across the board at the federal level. It'…

What changed between the old days and now to make running many independent(ish) experiments in government stop making sense?

Re: Life expectancy in the U.S. varies greatly by region

#53

Post by sammalloy »

pg_bot wrote: post #38

One thing that also should be pointed out is the race gap in medical outcomes. When you look at the statistics Black Americans face a higher risk of stroke, heart attacks, cancer mortality, infant mortality, maternal mortality, HIV/AIDS, diabetes, pneumonia, etc. In almost every leading cause of mortality in the United States there is a significant gap between Native Americans and Black Americans and the rest of the…

Take a look at the data in the commonwealth fund report for comparison. It’s not culture and poverty per se, it’s that unlike every modern and industrialized country in the world, the US lacks a universal healthcare system that serves all of its citizens fairly and proportionally regardless of race or culture. That’s the missing factor.

https://www.commonwealthfund.org/publications/issue-briefs/2...

Re: Life expectancy in the U.S. varies greatly by region

#54

Post by jerojero »

It's really depressing that, given the good data that we have available and the different compared experienced from other countries and public policy research efforts from our academics that the political system is simply incapable of producing the right policies to remedy these situations.

I mean, it seems to me like there's so much that gets confused in the public debate that most people voting for their representative have actually no idea what they're actually voting for. The political stage is filled with so much misinformation (which includes lies and omissions) that it has become very difficult for people to make the little decision power they have a good decision.

In many ways, I think the political system encourage a sort of "package deal" policy making. When in reality people will have positions all over the political spectrum. And most importantly, I think people are not even given the opportunity to change their minds to begin with. Misinformation and lack of opportunity to deliberate is really hurting the policies that are being adopted by most states and this is very concerning.

Of course, we shouldn't expect people to be concerned about everything at all times and be completely immersed in every issue out there. But there are plenty of ideas out there that seek to find middle of the ground solutions between engagement and influence. It just feels really bad that people are so concerned about closing the holes made by the faulty system that they don't stop and wonder that maybe a lot of these holes are natural consequences of the system's design to begin with.

Re: Life expectancy in the U.S. varies greatly by region

#55

Post by newfriend »

UncleOxidant wrote: post #32
trynumber9 wrote: post #15

Correlation with obesity rate seems stronger than anything else. And alcoholism in certain counties.

Seems to be a lot of correlation to voting patterns as well.

> Seems to be a lot of correlation to voting patterns as well.

No it doesn't: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:2020_United_States_presid...

It appears to be much more strongly correlated with poverty rate: https://www.census.gov/library/visualizations/2018/comm/acs-...

Re: Life expectancy in the U.S. varies greatly by region

#56

Post by lapcat »

23B1 wrote: post #31
ethanbond wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is your claim that the patronizing tone is the source of or a possible solution to the South’s problems? Or is this a, “because the coasts are patronizing, we don’t need to discuss these issues.” Seems like the latter to me but I’d be interested to hear if it’s the former.

“You made your bed, now lay in it” is neither constructive nor effective in changing minds.

True. What is effective, though?

Cultures do change themselves over time, but it may be painfully slow, and sometimes they don't change.

I'm not condescending or judging. We're all human biologically, and culture is not a simple matter of individual responsibility, it's a collective and historical phenomenon. Individuals may be able to rise above their culture, but in some cases the path can be longer and steeper. Would I be the same person if I were born in a different place? If I were born in a different time? Of course not. We've all been shaped by our culture.

In any case, it's difficult to help when relevant help is rejected, e.g., ACA subsidies. Moreover, there's an underlying conflict of values and even religion that pervades the politics, seeping into seemingly unrelated issues such as health and economics, and undermining the possibility of agreement or compromise. It's difficult to be kind, sympathetic, understanding, patient with someone when that someone goes out of their way to try to take away civil rights that you care deeply about. At a certain point, you need to fall back to self-preservation.

Re: Life expectancy in the U.S. varies greatly by region

#57

Post by hotpotamus »

23B1 wrote: post #20
hotpotamus wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had a co-worker whose neighbor died recently not all that much after his 40th birthday from some combination of smoking, occupational exposure to construction debris/chemicals, and long covid. He was on the list for a lung transplant for a bit, but no one seemed to believe that gave him any chance, and it did not. Perhaps if he had not smoked, worn proper PPE when needed, and gotten a covid vaccine, he would be ali…

When everyone sh*ts on your culture 24/7/365 for decades and decades, it gets pretty hard to separate the condescension from the genuinely good advice.

Indeed, when their own TV network calls them "dumb, cousin-fucking terrorists"[0], you'd think they'd have a hard time trusting them, but it doesn't seem that way. Still, I'd think don't smoke and take your vaccines would be relatively uncontroversial basic public health information these days, but I guess not.

[0]https://twitter.com/Eric_Alterman/status/1634971075334508544

Re: Life expectancy in the U.S. varies greatly by region

#58

Post by perth »

23B1 wrote: post #9
dfxm12 wrote: post #2

I saw all the doom and gloom tweets, but didn't realize most of the cause boils down to policy decisions. Call your elected officials and tell them you don't want to die an avoidable early death.

Sure seems to me like any time the technocrat/commentariat/coastal crowd point out the various problems with the American South, it's always with this patronizing schadenfreude vibe. "Haha guys look at the poor dumb hicks who don't know what's best for them"

The biggest problem with the American south: https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/article/how-a-worm-gave-the-so...

Re: Life expectancy in the U.S. varies greatly by region

#59

Post by brightball »

epgui wrote: post #8
dfxm12 wrote: post #2

I saw all the doom and gloom tweets, but didn't realize most of the cause boils down to policy decisions. Call your elected officials and tell them you don't want to die an avoidable early death.

I mean, what else could be the cause? One way or another, it'll come down to some insane policy decision or other. And this "states vs federal" power struggle in America (not my country) basically guarantees that there will be variance across states. The division of powers made sense in the old days, but in today's day and age it's crazy that there are not more standards set across the board at the federal level. It'…

Many US states are size equivalent to entire EU countries. There’s no need to let the EU control those countries directly, same goes for states.

Going one level higher up the chain doesn’t gain anything other than further separating people from policy makers.

Re: Life expectancy in the U.S. varies greatly by region

#60

Post by wesleywt »

dfxm12 wrote: post #2

I saw all the doom and gloom tweets, but didn't realize most of the cause boils down to policy decisions. Call your elected officials and tell them you don't want to die an avoidable early death.

I don't think you have noticed. But politics has devolved into being anti-woke rather than making adult policy decisions.
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