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U.S. death rates show how politics are affecting public health

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Re: U.S. death rates show how politics are affecting public health

#91

Post by timst4 »

jimt1234 wrote: post #37

Obesity. I grew up in a "deep red" area of the Midwest. It wasn't always like this, but it seems obesity is the norm now. And obesity has many health consequences. It's probably more cultural than political, though.

There was an article on HN recently talking about how Americans spend less per capita on groceries than almost anywhere else. However, this is not the good news it seems to be on the surface. The race to the bottom in groceries and produce (ahem, Walmart) has lowered the nutrient density of produce while at the same time pushing cheap processed foods that provide cheap sugar, fat, and salt. I’d be interested in seeing how many Trump-voting counties also predominantly shop at Wal-Mart and the effect this has on health outcomes.

Re: U.S. death rates show how politics are affecting public health

#92

Post by hedora »

scantis wrote: post #71
1986 wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You'll notice the totals are the same (673 + 2439 = 3112, 490 + 2622 = 3112), the changes are likely due to the counties' flipping in elections.

Okay so the counties flip, the democrats loose counties overall and gain 40 million ish people?

Yes. The Democrats keep losing counties and gaining voters.

This is also happening at the state level, and is causing the Senate to become ridiculously radical. It only takes the support of 5.1% of US voters to filibuster a bill, and 12% to defeat a filibuster:

https://www.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/2jnmbe/i_did_the_...

The "supervoters" making up that 5.1% and 12% are mostly in Republican states, and this has led to the Republican party drifting farther and farther right of the mainstream over time. For example:

74% of Americans want action on climate change: https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2021/09/14/americans-a...

69% of Americans want to keep Roe v Wade: https://www.marketwatch.com/story/what-percentage-of-america...

Yet neither can get 50 votes in the Senate, let alone the 60 required to pass.

Re: U.S. death rates show how politics are affecting public health

#93

Post by jschveibinz »

The conclusion reached by the authors in the original paper does not say “US death rates show how politics affect public health.” Here is the rather simple conclusion they reached:

> Conclusion: The mortality gap in Republican voting counties compared with Democratic voting counties has grown over time, especially for white populations, and that gap began to widen after 2008.

That’s it.

Re: U.S. death rates show how politics are affecting public health

#94

Post by mjevans »

vorpalhex wrote: post #77
windowsrookie wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I live in the Midwest. If you drive past the suburbs, the only restaurants available are fast food burger, fried chicken and pizza chains, with a subway thrown in (I don't consider subway healthy). Obviously it's not profitable to own a healthy restaurant out there, but why? Is it a lack of healthy eating education? Is it a "harder" life and junk food is a reward? Or is it cost? If it's cost, healthy home cooked food…

American palettes are screwed up. Most people wouldn't eat a meal of a simple salad, some lean protein and a multigrain carb.

American "salads" are BS.

  * BS Leaf (some worthless lettuce)
  * Mostly filler of BS Leaf
  * Poor in vegetables
  * Poor in seeds / nuts
  * Frequently small or cheap protein
  * A 'shelf stable' dressing for flavor
Yes, I've _considered_ making a salad at home, but by the time I buy ingredients I either have to eat the same for half a week in a row to try to use them up before they go bad, or just outright overpay.

No, I can't go out and just buy one. Most places (there might be 1 or 2 out of like 30-40 restaurants 'car drive') near me only make a 'BS salad'.

What I could really use is a sort of 'ghost kitchen' that takes relatively simple recipes based on bulk ingredients that are in stock at fair prices and makes a meal. Or maybe even just reusable snapware packs individual ingredients at sane sizes.

Re: U.S. death rates show how politics are affecting public health

#95

Post by jltsiren »

corrral wrote: post #79
windowsrookie wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I live in the Midwest. If you drive past the suburbs, the only restaurants available are fast food burger, fried chicken and pizza chains, with a subway thrown in (I don't consider subway healthy). Obviously it's not profitable to own a healthy restaurant out there, but why? Is it a lack of healthy eating education? Is it a "harder" life and junk food is a reward? Or is it cost? If it's cost, healthy home cooked food…

In broad swaths of the midwest, the outside isn't especially attractive, if it's not outright ugly. Minimal elevation change anywhere in sight, little visible rock outside road cuts, very few—and all unimpressive—waterfalls, slow, muddy, gross streams and rivers. And the landscape may well be like that for hundreds of miles in any direction. Then, on top of it, the weather's miserable 9 months out of the year. Oppres…

My Finnish perspective on cold. Our seasons are not as extreme as in the Midwest, but our culture has adapted to cold winters by necessity.

The winter clothes you wear when traveling from one indoor place to another are not appropriate for extended outdoor use, and the other way around. Many people need years or even decades to accept that they have to dress differently for the outdoors. Until that, they often think that cold temperatures are automatically unpleasant.

Freezing temperatures are rarely a problem as such. Wind and humidity can make them a problem. Inland forests tend to be more pleasant than open coastal areas in the winter.

Darkness makes everything much worse. Snow makes everything much prettier.

Finnish residential areas almost always have forests with walking trails nearby. I haven't been to the Midwest, but my impression is that American urban planning doesn't like leaving large undeveloped areas everyone is free to roam near developed areas. That often leaves the residents with nowhere to go by foot.

Re: U.S. death rates show how politics are affecting public health

#96

Post by scantis »

consp wrote: post #76
scantis wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Okay so the counties flip, the democrats loose counties overall and gain 40 million ish people?

Sounds like city vs rural counties.

They address this and find the same gap in the normalized subset of rural vs metropolitan areas. The gap goes from 5 point to 66, which is slightly less.

democrat 143 counties, n=91 809 974 to 156 counties, n=133 796 619 And republican 292 counties, n=61 407 202 to 280 counties, n=46 244 883

So overall health is improving, but it is improving more when increasing sample size. It is normalized, but still different things are compared.

Thanks I didn't know all that about democrats and counties, seems more involved then I thought.

Re: U.S. death rates show how politics are affecting public health

#97

Post by Sloppy »

Maybe true but is it causal?

Said another way, maybe counties with poor medical facilities, poorer people, etc. are more attracted to voting Republican. The title might read "The downtrodden are more attracted to Republican ideas"

Not saying this is true either it's just that the causal factors may not be part of the study. They tried to include race/color and gender but the effect is still visible across the board.

They did not study obesity or income level, which I suspect would show even stronger correlation to an increase in AAMR than what the county voted in the last election.

Re: U.S. death rates show how politics are affecting public health

#98

Post by mistrial9 »

Shared404 wrote: post #68
mistrial9 wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

good on you to look more carefully.. I would say that the emotion here is the health outcome.. by saying "super bad health outcome" == "that group over there" it appeals to emotions, because just about any whole person would care about health outcomes for others, and any literate person would very likely care about health outcome for themselves. with the emotion being the health outcome response, I would tend towards…

In the case of the clickbait-ish title I would agree, but if the actual claim is an accurate representation of the data[0] how is one supposed to phrase that idea in a way that _wouldn't_ be considered demagoguery under this broad of a definition? [0] I don't currently have time to verify this myself.

not a specialist but I have worked alongside specialists in public policy and public health, at scale. I think the first step is that you need to classify the parts of the population a few ways.. income, language group, age, relationships in close contact / living quarters; next layer is something about education, vocation, and remove or focus on real health outliers.. special needs, dangerous jobs, any circumstantial effects in their area that affect many people.

Any real studies in health sciences rely on statistics, so the treatment of the stats has to be defensible. That specifically is where they lose me, but that is how it is done.

I do not subscribe to the partisan politics world-view, in many, many ways.. so I was motivated to disparage the idea that this study is adequate to learn by the reader. I also am not going to take the time to really read this one. hth

Re: U.S. death rates show how politics are affecting public health

#99

Post by tomjakubowski »

mjevans wrote: post #94
vorpalhex wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

American palettes are screwed up. Most people wouldn't eat a meal of a simple salad, some lean protein and a multigrain carb.

American "salads" are BS. * BS Leaf (some worthless lettuce) * Mostly filler of BS Leaf * Poor in vegetables * Poor in seeds / nuts * Frequently small or cheap protein * A 'shelf stable' dressing for flavor Yes, I've _considered_ making a salad at home, but by the time I buy ingredients I either have to eat the same for half a week in a row to try to use them up before they go bad, or just outright overpay. No, I can…

Not really true in my experience, unless you're talking about side salads at typical restaurants. At a "main salad" kind of place, you can do a lot better in terms of greens, nuts, dressing options. Look at the menus for chains like Sweetgreen or Simply Green

Re: U.S. death rates show how politics are affecting public health

#100

Post by [deleted] »

windowsrookie wrote: post #66
jimt1234 wrote: post #37

Obesity. I grew up in a "deep red" area of the Midwest. It wasn't always like this, but it seems obesity is the norm now. And obesity has many health consequences. It's probably more cultural than political, though.

I live in the Midwest. If you drive past the suburbs, the only restaurants available are fast food burger, fried chicken and pizza chains, with a subway thrown in (I don't consider subway healthy). Obviously it's not profitable to own a healthy restaurant out there, but why? Is it a lack of healthy eating education? Is it a "harder" life and junk food is a reward? Or is it cost? If it's cost, healthy home cooked food…

[deleted]
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