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Life expectancy for men in US falls to 73 – six years less than women, study

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Re: Life expectancy for men in US falls to 73 – six years less than women, study

#121

Post by rgmerk »

nradov wrote: post #115
rgmerk wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This thread (and the accompanying article) are very informative (and damning): https://twitter.com/jburnmurdoch/status/1641799627128143873?... Drugs and road accidents are other disproportionate contributors to the US's awful life expectancy. At the risk of being a wiseass, at least some of this is Americans taking Ben Franklin's aphorism about liberty and safety far too seriously. Sometimes, trading some liberty for…

"For Americans age 18-45, the leading cause of death is fentanyl overdose." https://www.getsmartaboutdrugs.gov/media/dea-administrator-r... That is a sad situation, but giving up more liberty won't save those people. Freedom is more important than safety and I have no interest in living under an authoritarian police state.

Agreed on fentanyl, but there are other areas where nanny-stating saves lives.

The evidence on higher tobacco and alcohol taxes, for instance, is pretty irrefutable.

Or, moving up the implausibility scale in the American context, drastic reductions in the availability of handguns including the mass forfeiture of existing weapons (which has been done in a number of other developed countries).

You may not like any of these, particularly the last, but the fact is that they would increase life expectancy significantly.

Re: Life expectancy for men in US falls to 73 – six years less than women, study

#122

Post by orwin »

paulddraper wrote: post #29
atleastoptimal wrote: post #4

What precisely is causing Americans to die so much earlier than Europeans? I know obesity, healthcare access and gun violence play a factor, but is there anything else?

Americans live on average 2 years less than Europeans. [1] 37% of US adults and 16% of EU adults are obese (2014). [2] Even moderate obesity reduces life expectancy by 3 years. Severe obesity is 10 years. [3] Factor in the not-obsese-but-overweight, and you explain basically the entire difference. [1] https://www.cnn.com/2016/02/09/health/american-life-expectan... [2] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7670…

You should compare with similar economies, so Germany and Spain (France has less industry so the almost 80 yo life expectancy for men is 'easier').

Re: Life expectancy for men in US falls to 73 – six years less than women, study

#123

Post by orwin »

WendyTheWillow wrote: post #102
jrumbut wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gun violence is a major influencer of life expectancy in America. The average American would live a couple of years longer without gun deaths (including suicide and accidents). https://time.com/5471069/guns-life-expectancy/ The reason that it has such an outsized effect is because it tends to happen early in life.

Oh right, suicide. But wouldn't at least a portion of those suicides still be suicides without guns?

Not successful ones. The issue with not having an available loaded gun is that you have to plan your death.

Re: Life expectancy for men in US falls to 73 – six years less than women, study

#124

Post by nl »

dmoy wrote: post #89
nl wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

According to [1], "homicide, suicide and gun deaths" is the 2nd highest factor in explaining the difference. [1] https://twitter.com/jburnmurdoch/status/1641799922583326720/...

I can't read the underlying article, but that graph a minimum is not saying "2nd highest factor". It notes both drugs (lowers gap to 2.9) and metabolic diseases (lowers gap to 2.2) as both more of a factor than suicide & homicide (only lowers gap to 3.2). Which tracks, given that suicide is like 50k per year, homicide is 20k per year (unstated: "gun deaths" that aren't homicide or suicide are orders of magnitude lowe…

Oh I've read it the wrong way around! Yes you are correct!

Re: Life expectancy for men in US falls to 73 – six years less than women, study

#125

Post by nl »

nl wrote: post #75
rgmerk wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This thread (and the accompanying article) are very informative (and damning): https://twitter.com/jburnmurdoch/status/1641799627128143873?... Drugs and road accidents are other disproportionate contributors to the US's awful life expectancy. At the risk of being a wiseass, at least some of this is Americans taking Ben Franklin's aphorism about liberty and safety far too seriously. Sometimes, trading some liberty for…

For those who haven't looked, this analysis is very useful. Almost all the gap is caused by the higher rate of deaths of under 25yos in the US. From [1] the largest differences appears to be: 1) Road deaths 2) Homicide, suicide and gun deaths 3) Drug related deaths. [1] https://twitter.com/jburnmurdoch/status/1641799922583326720/...

Actually I've read this the wrong way around. The biggest difference is actually cardio-matabolic diseases!

Re: Life expectancy for men in US falls to 73 – six years less than women, study

#127

Post by wilg »

paulddraper wrote: post #59
wilg wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you want actual analysis of this, I'd suggest: - https://www.slowboring.com/p/tackling-americas-weirdly-short... - https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/americans-are-coping-ourselves...

> Tackling America's weirdly short life expectancy Shows US higher than Poland. Okay.

I don't understand your complaint, isn't that accurate?

> Indeed, life expectancy in the United States is so bad that the relevant comparison class is a set of much poorer countries like Chile and Poland — countries that are richer than the world average but aren’t even close to the top.

Re: Life expectancy for men in US falls to 73 – six years less than women, study

#128

Post by timeon »

defrost wrote: post #114
jandrewrogers wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of the largest outliers is vehicular accidents. Americans drive from an early age and drive a lot of miles. There are a bunch of historical and cultural reasons for this mostly related to agriculture, but you could get permits at age 14 and I seem to recall people driving as young as 12 in restricted agricultural contexts when I was growing up. Most start at 15-16. They also tend to do stupid things in cars when…

> One of the largest outliers is vehicular accidents. Americans drive from an early age and drive a lot of miles. Australia is kind of big and kind of sparse (check map) and has cars; I live in a state 3x larger than Texas and drove 40 km to high school 5 days a week (and back again in the afternoon), and travelled > 1,000 km to reach the nearest university. It's true that USofA citizens have more fatalities per driv…

I think in US you do not need to attend driving school in order to get license. Is it same for Australia?

Re: Life expectancy for men in US falls to 73 – six years less than women, study

#129

Post by defrost »

timeon wrote: post #128
defrost wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> One of the largest outliers is vehicular accidents. Americans drive from an early age and drive a lot of miles. Australia is kind of big and kind of sparse (check map) and has cars; I live in a state 3x larger than Texas and drove 40 km to high school 5 days a week (and back again in the afternoon), and travelled > 1,000 km to reach the nearest university. It's true that USofA citizens have more fatalities per driv…

I think in US you do not need to attend driving school in order to get license. Is it same for Australia?

Yes.

Australia requires you to take a driving test - a "written" largely multi choice test to demonstrate understanding of road rules, success there gives you [L] learner plates that allow you to drive under supervision and practice. You then have to pass a practical driving test to gain [P] probationary plates for unassisted driving with some restrictions - after a year or so you're a full driver.

No driving school is required - but it can help if you don't have access to a cool calm collected experienced driver who can walk you the skills test - reversing, parallel park, correct signalling, emergency stop, etc.

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