How long you live depends on which USA you live in

[kurth]

9/12/2006
How long you live depends on which USA you live in
By Steve Sternberg, USA TODAY

WASHINGTON — America is a nation divided by vast differences in life expectancy, a "longevity gap" that can't be readily explained by race, income or access to health care, a study reported Monday. In fact, when viewed through the prism of life expectancy, there are eight Americas, with decades separating groups consisting of millions of people, report Harvard's Christopher Murray and his colleagues.

His team examined state and county life expectancies, the risk of death from specific diseases, health insurance and access to health care for major population groups from 1980 to 2001. They found that life expectancy differences are driven mainly by chronic diseases in young and middle-aged adults. Income, infant mortality, violence and HIV/AIDS, which now responds to drugs, played less of a role.

Among long-lived people 15 to 44, the death toll from chronic disease was as low as among the Japanese. The profile for the group with the shortest life span resembles Russia. "Where we fall down is delivering health care for young and middle-aged adults," Murray says... The following is a snapshot of the "eight Americas" and how life expectancy divides us:

•1. 10.4 million Asians with a per capita income of $21,566 and an average life expectancy of 85.
•2. 3.6 million whites in Minnesota, the Dakotas, Iowa, Montana and Nebraska, with a income of $17,758 and an average life expectancy of 79 .
•3. 214 million middle Americans, with a per capita income of $24,640 and an average life expectancy of 78.
•4. 16.6 million whites in Appalachia and the Mississippi Valley with an income of $16,390 and a life expectancy of 75.
•5. 1 million Western Native Americans with a per capita income of $10,029 and life expectancy of 73.
•6. 23.4 million black middle Americans with a per capita income of $15,412 and a life expectancy of 73.
•7. 5.8 million southern low-income blacks with a per capita income of $10,463 and a life expectancy of 71.
•8. 7.5 million high-risk urban blacks, living in counties with a homicide risk that tops the 95th percentile of U.S. counties, with a per capita income of $14,800 and a life expectancy of 71.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2006-09-11-life-expectancy_x.htm?POE=NEWISVA

[area51]

1. Healthcare

Actually, I think it can be explained via healthcare access. The rich have access to all the healthcare they need, so of course they'll survive longer; the poor & middleclass are told to pound sand, so of course they won't survive as long.

"Yet we spend much of our attention and 16% of our national income on health care," Skinner says. "There's no way that differences in the quality of health care can explain 20-year gaps in life expectancy."

There's every way. What's so difficult to understand that we basically have a 3rd-world country masquerading as a first-world country, barbarically denying healthcare to all citizens. Just because we spend 16% of our nat'l income on healthcare, doesn't mean that everyone has access to healthcare. :eyes:

[MountainLaurel]

2. Among other things

Don't discount the role of factors like:

* Environmental contaminants.
* Availability and affordability of healthy, non-processed food.
* Violence.
* Untreated mental illness.