[crossposted from my blog]
Researchers from the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at my med school alma mater, University of Washington, just released a study entitled "Falling Behind: life expectancy in US counties from 2000 to 2007 in an international context." By breaking down life expectancy data on a county-by-county basis, it shows not only how the US as a whole lags the rest of the world but also how regions of the US differ vastly. Much as wealth is increasingly concentrated in an elite who largely live in metro areas of "blue states," so, too, is health.
Here's their most visually compelling figure, of county-by-county life expectancy for women. Blue is good, assuming one wants to live longer, and red is bad.
If you saw this and guessed that the counties that have lower life expectancy are the ones with lower socioeconomic status, then give yourself a pat on the back: you're exactly right. See the 2008 median household income by county data from the Census Bureau for proof. Conversely, one can see that people in rich counties live for quite a long time indeed, on par with the rest of the developed world.
I don't think access to money is the causative agent here, though. I bet it's just a good proxy measure for education level, tobacco use/disuse, and availability/use of preventative care. As such, I don't think throwing money at the problem (either at doctors in those regions or at the people themselves) will fix it. It'll take a wholesale changing of diet, lifestyle, and priorities in order to bring life expectancy in the red counties above up closer to the developed world's norm, and I don't affecting this change is a task well suited for the government even if it were inclined to take on such a role. Unfortunately, I don't think people are apt to change their pickup-truck driving, massively obese, smoking, unseatbelted ways any time soon, either, so expect more of the same in the future.
Researchers from the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at my med school alma mater, University of Washington, just released a study entitled "Falling Behind: life expectancy in US counties from 2000 to 2007 in an international context." By breaking down life expectancy data on a county-by-county basis, it shows not only how the US as a whole lags the rest of the world but also how regions of the US differ vastly. Much as wealth is increasingly concentrated in an elite who largely live in metro areas of "blue states," so, too, is health.
Here's their most visually compelling figure, of county-by-county life expectancy for women. Blue is good, assuming one wants to live longer, and red is bad.
If you saw this and guessed that the counties that have lower life expectancy are the ones with lower socioeconomic status, then give yourself a pat on the back: you're exactly right. See the 2008 median household income by county data from the Census Bureau for proof. Conversely, one can see that people in rich counties live for quite a long time indeed, on par with the rest of the developed world.
I don't think access to money is the causative agent here, though. I bet it's just a good proxy measure for education level, tobacco use/disuse, and availability/use of preventative care. As such, I don't think throwing money at the problem (either at doctors in those regions or at the people themselves) will fix it. It'll take a wholesale changing of diet, lifestyle, and priorities in order to bring life expectancy in the red counties above up closer to the developed world's norm, and I don't affecting this change is a task well suited for the government even if it were inclined to take on such a role. Unfortunately, I don't think people are apt to change their pickup-truck driving, massively obese, smoking, unseatbelted ways any time soon, either, so expect more of the same in the future.
o it would seem the secular regions are more apt toward parsimony & not philanthropy, while those w/ more religious tendencies are more easily manipulated to part w/ their cash.