The Gap Between Rich and Poor Americans' Health Is Widening • Hacker News Board

Re: The Gap Between Rich and Poor Americans' Health Is Widening

#111

Post by tomp » Wed, Jul 03, 2019, 10:16 PM UTC

denverkarma wrote: post #29

It’s really hard for me not to be skeptical of a study that starts with the premise of measuring everyone else against “the most privileged group,” aka. white men, and then calling their metric “health justice.” I don’t know the stats off the top of my head but I’ve heard many times that men’s health issues are under-studies relative to women’s — ie breast cancer versus prostate cancer. I’ve also seen that mental hea…

> men’s health issues are under-studies relative to women’s — ie breast cancer versus prostate cancer.

That sounds unfair, but according to the staistics I can find [0] [1], breast cancer kills more and/or younger people (mostly women) than prostate cancer, which kills slightly less and/or older men (many men die with prostate cancer, but not of it).

[0] https://ourworldindata.org/cancer

[1] https://www.cancerresearchuk.org/health-professional/cancer-...

Re: The Gap Between Rich and Poor Americans' Health Is Widening

#112

Post by jhhh » Wed, Jul 03, 2019, 10:50 PM UTC

JMTQp8lwXL wrote: post #35

ndiscussion wrote: post #2

Being healthy is cheap as can be, but the gap is indeed increasing. One need only spend 10 minutes at their favorite discount grocer checkout line to see why. I'm not sure what the answer is, but it's very sad. Why are we destroying our bodies? edit: this quote is getting at it, but seems to ignore the real problem. > Research shows that health care accounts for only 10% to 20% of overall health outcomes > when patie…

It's "cheap" if your labor is valued. I imagine the relationship between health consequences and income could somewhat be related to having multiple jobs, long hours, and being too tired to prioritize health after a long day. That fast food looks quick, convenient and affordable when you're going from one job to another and don't have much time or the additional money to spend on healthier fast casual eating options.…

Only 5% of working adults in the US have more than one job. The average worker between 25-54 works 40.5 hours with an average commute of 26 minutes each way.

Re: The Gap Between Rich and Poor Americans' Health Is Widening

#113

Post by mkr-hn » Wed, Jul 03, 2019, 11:17 PM UTC

TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #109

mensetmanusman wrote: post #15

America is set up like a strange satire. If you get unhealthy, you literally become poor to the song of 6 digits. A six digit reduction in wealth is enough to make over 90% of America poor.

It's enough to bankrupt hundreds of thousands of Americans - every year. Your ill health and bankruptcy become someone else's yacht or private jet. It's pure vampirism. There is no other word for it.

Vampires at least have a good reason to suck people dry.

Re: The Gap Between Rich and Poor Americans' Health Is Widening

#114

Post by JMTQp8lwXL » Wed, Jul 03, 2019, 11:37 PM UTC

jhhh wrote: post #112

JMTQp8lwXL wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's "cheap" if your labor is valued. I imagine the relationship between health consequences and income could somewhat be related to having multiple jobs, long hours, and being too tired to prioritize health after a long day. That fast food looks quick, convenient and affordable when you're going from one job to another and don't have much time or the additional money to spend on healthier fast casual eating options.…

Only 5% of working adults in the US have more than one job. The average worker between 25-54 works 40.5 hours with an average commute of 26 minutes each way.

Does this include 1099 contracting work? Because those aren't "jobs", by a W2 definition of the concept.

Re: The Gap Between Rich and Poor Americans' Health Is Widening

#115

Post by malandrew » Wed, Jul 03, 2019, 11:43 PM UTC

Why are we looking at self-reports instead of outcomes?

If self reports remained constant since 1993 for the most privileged group and dropped for other groups, then all things being equal, outcomes should have dropped on average when you look at the entire population, but when you look at data about actual outcomes, they don't support this:

https://www.healthsystemtracker.org/chart-collection/how-has...

Maybe people feel worse even though they are doing better but don't remember how things were 25+ years ago.

Re: The Gap Between Rich and Poor Americans' Health Is Widening

#116

Post by fwip » Thu, Jul 04, 2019, 12:12 AM UTC

holbrad wrote: post #91

fwip wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Better hypothesis: wealth and health make executive functioning easier.

Why would that be a better hypothesis? It seems likely that for all of these factors the arrow of causality would go in both directions. Being wealthier allows you to spend more time, money and effort on health (though with diminishing returns). You can spend more time and effort learning Being healthier, allows you do physically work more both short and long term. There are also cognitive benefits from healthy activ…

Being born with a high IQ is like being born with a high SAT - it isn't real.

Re: The Gap Between Rich and Poor Americans' Health Is Widening

#117

Post by mempko » Thu, Jul 04, 2019, 12:25 AM UTC

reallydude wrote: post #105

mempko wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no such thing as a root cause. The economy is a dynamic system under a legal framework which governs the way it works. A lot of that legal framework is designed to punish the poor and punish minorities which makes them poor. It's doubly troubling and to tackle inequality requires tackling the legal and social framework our economy exists in which happens to have institutional racism and sexism. In other word…

> getting rid of racism and gender inequality You can't get rid of racial and gender inequality, because we're inherently inequal to each other AND between the genders. It's in our DNA for the foreseeable future. We can diminish and mute it, at best. Diminishing returns has set in, while we ignore the more impactful issues.

this is literally the definition of racism and sexism.

Re: The Gap Between Rich and Poor Americans' Health Is Widening

#118

Post by MuffinFlavored » Thu, Jul 04, 2019, 1:00 AM UTC

holbrad wrote: post #86

MuffinFlavored wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They are completely preventable though diet and other lifestyle changes. Does this mean that some of those Americans are to blame due to living such an unhealthy lifestyle?

Personally I think they do shoulder some blame. But I certainly think things could be made significantly easier for the average person to do the right thing. Nutrition science is very complicated with very strong biases and conflicting results. It makes it difficult to actually know what to eat, the media doesn't help by regurgitating every single crappy study that has a catchy or provocative conclusion. (The rubbish…

> Personally I think they do shoulder some blame. But I certainly think things could be made significantly easier for the average person to do the right thing.

Here is a good example. I'm not poor. $30 on a meal means very little to me.

I'm not aware of many low calorie, healthy, quick food options, even if price isn't an issue.

I think that's the problem. You can get $0.99 cheeseburgers + fries + milkshakes quickly, but you can't get a $9.99 salad quickly. I know fast food chains sell salads but... I feel like that's a guaranteed way to not get the full nutrition of what a salad is really supposed to offer.

What are your thoughts?

Re: The Gap Between Rich and Poor Americans' Health Is Widening

#119

Post by autoexec » Thu, Jul 04, 2019, 1:03 AM UTC

asark wrote: post #88

foxyv wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a few friends on the poverty line. They all live in houses and apartments without access to a working kitchen. Many rented rooms don't come with kitchen "privileges." In addition they work 60+ hours a week making time consuming food preparation less practical. The result is a lot of cheap pre-packaged food and fast food.

Cheap, gross pizza is a thing, and you just have to pick it up. IIRC a Costco combination pizza will provide enough calories for a largish adult for two days , and is $10. No oven, no kitchen, no gadgets, no cooking required. It'll even probably still be fine to eat day two without refrigeration. Ditto all sorts of other dirt-cheap gross pizza joints, not just Costco. Math works out almost as good. Or cheap frozen pi…

Costco pizza is great, but poor people don't shop at stores that make you pay just to shop there. They don't buy in bulk because even when it would be cheaper in the long run they don't have the money for the investment or the space to store what isn't being used. Often they don't live in areas where a costco is even anywhere near them. Those in food deserts don't even get regular stores. When time is factored in (prep time, clean up and number of shopping trips required) bad food is unquestionably less expensive.

Re: The Gap Between Rich and Poor Americans' Health Is Widening

#120

Post by RickJWagner » Thu, Jul 04, 2019, 1:04 AM UTC

flahgd wrote: post #62

save_ferris wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Statistically speaking, white men are far and away the highest income earners in America. They are literally the most privileged group. Until 2008, 44 of 44 of US presidents were white men. White men dominate the Fortune 500, Wall Street, and leadership in the government. The paper also explicitly defined health justice as "a measure of the correlation of health outcomes with income, race/ethnicity and sex; and a sum…

Indians and asians actually earn more than whites on average.

I think some places categorize Indians as Asians. (Not that this changes the earnings stats.)