"It's a poor nation with rich people in it."
Why is life expectancy in the US lower than in other rich countries?
11–20 of 205 posts
Re: Why is life expectancy in the US lower than in other rich countries?
#12Comparing ethnically homogenous countries to the US is meaningless and downright deliberately misleading at best. There is significant variation in every state by race. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_and_territ...
West Virginia is 92% non-Hispanic white (2018) and has the lowest life expectancy of any US state (74.8). Which clearly disproves that common hypothesis. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_and_territ...
Life expectancy and overall heath in the US is strongly correlated to wealth. It’s a feedback loop, being poor directly results in worse access to healthcare etc, but also because it’s much harder for sick people to hold down a job etc.
Edit: Bottom 5 states by life expectancy vs their median household income rank (#). West Virginia 74.8 years (#50) Mississippi 74.9 years (#49) Alabama 75.4 years (#44) Kentucky 75.4 years (#43) Arkansas 75.9 years (#48). It’s not perfectly correlated but the relationship is very strong.
PS: Great Britain actually has significantly more ethnic diversity than WV and lower median household income than WV yet life expectancy is more than 5 years longer.
Re: Why is life expectancy in the US lower than in other rich countries?
#13There really are two Americas - wealthy america and the rest of america. I'll bet if you split America into two sets of counties, the graph would be much different -- one would be a super-outlier and the other a super-laggard. I know this personally, as I've spent 21yrs of my life in one half, and another 20 in the other half. I've also lived overseas for several years, and they also have stratas, but much less prono…
Coastal America and rest of America might be a better way to cut it.
Re: Why is life expectancy in the US lower than in other rich countries?
#14Comparing ethnically homogenous countries to the US is meaningless and downright deliberately misleading at best. There is significant variation in every state by race. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_and_territ...
Are other races somehow not American? I never understood this argument.
"If it weren't for all those black people and immigrants we'd actually be really good! Those other countries are just too 'homogenous'. "
And then somehow this fact apparently dismisses other countries efforts at providing universal/preventative healthcare and initiatives that the US simply does not.
Re: Why is life expectancy in the US lower than in other rich countries?
#15Comparing ethnically homogenous countries to the US is meaningless and downright deliberately misleading at best. There is significant variation in every state by race. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_and_territ...
can't this variance be explained more accurately by relative income? the US is more ethically diverse than many western nations, but also has high income inequality. This inequality, unfortunately, is distributed ethically
Re: Why is life expectancy in the US lower than in other rich countries?
#16There really are two Americas - wealthy america and the rest of america. I'll bet if you split America into two sets of counties, the graph would be much different -- one would be a super-outlier and the other a super-laggard. I know this personally, as I've spent 21yrs of my life in one half, and another 20 in the other half. I've also lived overseas for several years, and they also have stratas, but much less prono…
Coastal America and rest of America might be a better way to cut it.
I don't think its so geographically aligned like that. Plenty of rich areas in Chicago, Houston, Dallas, Phoenix etc.
Re: Why is life expectancy in the US lower than in other rich countries?
#17We spend double, as a percentage of GDP, what any other rich country spends on health care, so that's not it.
Other first world nations spend half of what we do, and they have better outcomes and quality of care[1]. They are able to insure all of their citizens with it while the US doesn't.
[1] https://www.healthsystemtracker.org/chart-collection/quality...
Re: Why is life expectancy in the US lower than in other rich countries?
#18We spend double, as a percentage of GDP, what any other rich country spends on health care, so that's not it.
Maybe it's because of the US spending a lot chasing diminishing returns for rich people but little on impactful interventions for the poor.
Re: Why is life expectancy in the US lower than in other rich countries?
#19Earlier quoted context omitted.
Coastal America and rest of America might be a better way to cut it.
I don't think its so geographically aligned like that. Plenty of rich areas in Chicago, Houston, Dallas, Phoenix etc.
While that is true, I think that some of these things are tied to local culture too, which is why the Coastal distinction does have some merit.
If you generally are in the Bay Area or LA you rarely see the level of obesity you see in say Houston despite the fact that both areas despite being rich have their fair share of the poor too.
Similarly for smoking. It's exceedingly rare to see public smoking in the Bay Area.
Similarly for diets. When traveling in the South I was amazed at just how ridiculously unhealthy the average food eaten by the average person there was. Everything deep fried, laden with calories, consumed along with sugary drinks.
Re: Why is life expectancy in the US lower than in other rich countries?
#20We spend double, as a percentage of GDP, what any other rich country spends on health care, so that's not it.
It's not spent efficiently.