Poverty Is the 4th Leading Cause of Death in the US, Research Shows

> Someone who caught covid at work knowing they were immunocompromised but needed the money, did they did our pandemic or poverty?

When looking at aggregate statistics one of examples can't be considered, the data simply isn't there. Also for this example I believe the answer would be that the fictious person would have died with covid and poverty, notof either one.

> Someone who died of preventable covid complications but couldn't access adequate Healthcare because of money?

Similar issues here. The study want designed to look into these concerns and the data just isn't there. In this example it's also be impossible to know if the person does of preventable complications, at best you could say they died with complications that are often treatable or preventable.

My point with regards to this study was simply that they are looking at people who died of drug overdoses, weather exposure, hunger, etc and rolling that up to say they died from poverty as those issues are often linked to poverty. I'm arguing that they would have to make a similar decision for any poverty caused by the pandemic and pandemic response, they wouldn't have been poor if not for the pandemic just like the study is assuming someone wouldn't have died of not for being below their definition of poverty.

If a study gets to pick and choose whether they want to pin the blame on covid or poverty then the data really is useless. Solid data backed up by empirical evidence showing causation, which is what this study attempts to do, is directional and can't be flipped around. It's worth noting here the article is calling poverty a cause of death, not a contributing factor. They are making the claim that it is directly causal, in which case the order isn't reversable.

fetus != human

Please do not dehumanize your victims.

More like “I’d rather have minimally acceptable understanding than incorrect and harmful understanding.”

The reason is there are many confounding variables so measuring poverty incorrectly and reaching a wrong conclusion can focus resources toward people who don’t need it (eg, single people making half the median wage who are not in poverty).

I think sometimes you don’t have a choice. But in this case, there is a more accurate measure to use, so not using it makes conclusions less helpful.

I think claiming things as “anti-science” is a gatekeeping function that is counterproductive. Especially when people don’t understand statistical significance and are trying to make conclusions that aren’t accurate. I don’t think things are “anti-science” or “pro-science” as these are imprecise and meaningless statements.

I’m not sure what you mean by saying anti-science. But I think it’s not logical to assume something that is minimally effective is striving for perfection and something that isn’t significant is good enough.

It is the national median though, which completely loses the fine-grained detail built into the national poverty statistics that adjust for cost of living at the state level.

I don't think I would actually say the federal metric itself is particularly useful, but so much existing data depends on it that it seems crazy to reinvent the meaning of what the poverty line is for one specific study.