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
#2What I took from this was more dug addicts are dying, not "the average American", or did I miss something?
Re: Life expectancy in America has declined for two years in a row
#3Life expectancy is a very blunt tool when measuring citizen's well being.
A few ways life expectancy can go down:
- babies that other would have died and not counted live long enough with modern medicine that they drag the average down
- refugees or immigrants in poor health increase, dragging the average down
- a change in methodology in how life expectancy is calculated
Re: Life expectancy in America has declined for two years in a row
#4What I took from this was more dug addicts are dying, not "the average American", or did I miss something?
Well if you’re calculating “the average American”, you have to include drug-addicted Americans.
Re: Life expectancy in America has declined for two years in a row
#5Life expectancy is a very blunt tool when measuring citizen's well being. A few ways life expectancy can go down: - babies that other would have died and not counted live long enough with modern medicine that they drag the average down - refugees or immigrants in poor health increase, dragging the average down - a change in methodology in how life expectancy is calculated
It may be blunt, but it's also pretty striking. Along most measures of wellbeing and health, the US lags behind most other industrialized countries.
Re: Life expectancy in America has declined for two years in a row
#6Life expectancy is a very blunt tool when measuring citizen's well being. A few ways life expectancy can go down: - babies that other would have died and not counted live long enough with modern medicine that they drag the average down - refugees or immigrants in poor health increase, dragging the average down - a change in methodology in how life expectancy is calculated
> babies that other would have died and not counted live long enough with modern medicine that they drag the average down
Something similar happened when seat belts (or was it airbags?) became mandatory. There was a sudden spike in serious injuries from car crashes, as what would have been instant fatalities became injured survivors.
Re: Life expectancy in America has declined for two years in a row
#7Life expectancy is a very blunt tool when measuring citizen's well being. A few ways life expectancy can go down: - babies that other would have died and not counted live long enough with modern medicine that they drag the average down - refugees or immigrants in poor health increase, dragging the average down - a change in methodology in how life expectancy is calculated
> babies that other would have died and not counted live long enough with modern medicine that they drag the average down Something similar happened when seat belts (or was it airbags?) became mandatory. There was a sudden spike in serious injuries from car crashes, as what would have been instant fatalities became injured survivors.
And decades earlier, when metal helmets were issued to soldiers, head injuries in war increased dramatically.
Re: Life expectancy in America has declined for two years in a row
#8Lingering 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 with this topic is focused on everything other than the underlying problems driving the abuse, which is a guaranteed way to never solve anything.
Re: Life expectancy in America has declined for two years in a row
#9Is 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.
Re: Life expectancy in America has declined for two years in a row
#10https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/fuele...
Looks like it's attributed to drug epidemic
edit: I've posted this WP article because I couldn't actually read the Economist article due to paywall, and I figured other readers may have same issues.