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Life expectancy in the U.S. varies greatly by region

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Re: Life expectancy in the U.S. varies greatly by region

#61

Post by opportune »

23B1 wrote: post #26
scottLobster wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having half my extended family in the rural South, they don't often do much to offset that impression. There are nice ones and mean ones, but none of them really have their lives together and there's obvious stuff they could be doing, like cutting sugar consumption in half (so many diabetics). One of my uncles died of complications from willfully unmanaged diabetes. His foot was literally rotting off one toe at a tim…

Thank you for illustrating my point. Yeesh.

I am from the South and I concur with that poster, I’m not sure why takes like these are invalid due to having left. If a place has a lot of problems, you would expect people to leave it and then freely tell other people about the problems after getting more exposure to the world outside of it.

The South has educational problems, lack of opportunities, a lot of poverty, health problems, and different cultural values when compared with the rest of the country. This is a fact, it’s not a “yikes” to state this.

It’s not entirely willful, but it’s also not a completely unavoidable state of affairs either. A lot of it is cultural - when you’re in that environment, it’s normal to you. But at the same time, the people making up the culture as a whole are not helpless individuals incapable of understanding things like diabetes or obesity

Re: Life expectancy in the U.S. varies greatly by region

#62

Post by brightball »

kylehotchkiss wrote: post #14
brightball wrote: post #3

“Every man dies. Not every man truly experiences sweet tea.” - Southern Braveheart (probably)

1 generous cup of sugar per half gallon of tea was my old recipe. I was merely a Virginian so I think it could be increased even more a state or two south

As a South Carolinian, that recipes is accurate.

Re: Life expectancy in the U.S. varies greatly by region

#63

Post by reducesuffering »

fooker wrote: post #36

For those who are immediately thinking of the political angle, compare Utah and Oregon.

Umm... There is a strong political correlation here. Even the one exception you're thinking of, doesn't buck the trend, as all the Democrat/Blue parts of Oregon and Utah are high life-expectancy and the Republican/Red rural parts are not.

Re: Life expectancy in the U.S. varies greatly by region

#64

Post by lokar »

23B1 wrote: post #47
lokar wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Consider what are the predominant themes were in white southern culture 60 years ago. They never really let go of it.

I guess they’re getting what they deserve then, eh?

Certainly not. I think they have cynically manipulated by politicians taking advantage of some amount of real cultural disapproval. They cultivate the grievances and push them even more extremes.

Re: Life expectancy in the U.S. varies greatly by region

#65

Post by lapcat »

brightball wrote: post #59
epgui wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, what else could be the cause? One way or another, it'll come down to some insane policy decision or other. And this "states vs federal" power struggle in America (not my country) basically guarantees that there will be variance across states. The division of powers made sense in the old days, but in today's day and age it's crazy that there are not more standards set across the board at the federal level. It'…

Many US states are size equivalent to entire EU countries. There’s no need to let the EU control those countries directly, same goes for states. Going one level higher up the chain doesn’t gain anything other than further separating people from policy makers.

However, US states are vastly more interconnected than EU countries. We all (well, mostly) speak the same language, we all use the same currency and always have used the same currency, you can walk or drive across the borders of any states with nobody checking or caring, and indeed states don't need to take individual responsibility for protecting their borders militarily. You can live and work in any state you want and move to or work in a different state at any time. The US military is mostly nationalized. The state-based National Guard does exist, but it's quite small and weak compared to the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines. And the National Guard doesn't have nuclear weapons! Imagine if individual US states controlled nukes...

Re: Life expectancy in the U.S. varies greatly by region

#66

Post by danans »

fooker wrote: post #36

For those who are immediately thinking of the political angle, compare Utah and Oregon.

Politics doesn't directly kill people earlier (usually), but policy can either tamp down or exacerbate other problems.

Utah and Oregon both have large urban prosperous populations who can afford healthcare and these areas are known for outdoor healthy lifestyles. SLC is loaded with fitness oriented businesses. They are socioeconomically very similar.

In contrast, many of the worst outcomes are in places that are poor, have major drug or violence epidemics, and also have little in the way of public support for healthcare.

Bad policy can make a bad situation worse more than good policy can improve an already pretty good situation.

Re: Life expectancy in the U.S. varies greatly by region

#67

Post by kolanos »

ethanbond wrote: post #18
23B1 wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure seems to me like any time the technocrat/commentariat/coastal crowd point out the various problems with the American South, it's always with this patronizing schadenfreude vibe. "Haha guys look at the poor dumb hicks who don't know what's best for them"

What’s the other explanation? I presume it’s not the enormous amount of asymmetric financial assistance that pours into the south every single year from the “patronizing” coastal elites? The South ties its wagon to the wrong horse year in and year out. No one forces them to do that. Fixating on the patronizing tone is exactly the type of error that gets these outcomes.

> I presume it’s not the enormous amount of asymmetric financial assistance that pours into the south every single year from the “patronizing” coastal elites?

No, this is largely a myth. [0]

[0]: https://mises.org/wire/no-red-state-economies-dont-depend-gr...

Re: Life expectancy in the U.S. varies greatly by region

#68

Post by try_the_bass »

portmanteur wrote: post #42
rgmerk wrote: post #19

Nobody has explicitly connected the other damning life expectancy visualisation on Twitter yet, so it’s worth linking to it: https://twitter.com/jburnmurdoch/status/1641799627128143873?... The difference in life expectancy between the UK and the US is mostly down to young Americans dying from guns, drugs, and cars; my guess is much of the differences within the US are attributable to the same factors.

These sorts of charts are meaningless without being broken down by race. I did a quick search for "US Mortality Rate by Race" and I found CDC documents showing that African Americans have roughly 35% higher age-adjusted mortality than non-Hispanic Whites [0], and have on average 7 year shorter life expectancy at birth [1]. When people show maps where the American South has seemingly worse outcomes than the rest of th…

From the linked thread[1]:

> One misconception I also want to address: the dreadful US performance does not disappear if you “adjust for race”.

> This is way way overstated.

I wonder where the is? Different data sources?

[1] https://twitter.com/jburnmurdoch/status/1641799890605932544

Re: Life expectancy in the U.S. varies greatly by region

#69

Post by lapcat »

lokar wrote: post #64
23B1 wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess they’re getting what they deserve then, eh?

Certainly not. I think they have cynically manipulated by politicians taking advantage of some amount of real cultural disapproval. They cultivate the grievances and push them even more extremes.

Politicians are just people. They're not space aliens like Kang and Kodos. Politicians are citizens and came from the same place as everyone else. They're just as much a product of the local culture as everyone else in their locality.

Re: Life expectancy in the U.S. varies greatly by region

#70

Post by danans »

silisili wrote: post #44
sremani wrote: post #17

Rio Grande Valley (one of poor regions in US) has similar life expectancy as Northern Burbs of DFW while beating Dallas and Tarrant county. Need to take a deeper look at the data. Could be access to medical facilities in Mexico border towns - that would be some fascinating data. Looks like the data is pulled from here - https://ghdx.healthdata.org/about-ghdx/ghdx-records-explaine...

Hispanics live longer than white people, who live longer than black people (look at the Black Belt). It's hard to simply blame economics when some very poor Hispanic regions outlive some wealthy black/white ones. I'm not versed enough to know whether race itself plays any significant roles, or if it's more cultural, but it's certainly eye opening as a factor.

> Hispanics live longer than white people, who live longer than black people (look at the Black Belt).

There is a glaring counterexample:

Atlanta, a prosperous majority black city, has very high life expectancy, but the surrounding rural areas in Georgia, majority white and poor, have low life expectancy.

Birmingham Alabama is another similar example.

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