Eight Americas: Investigating Mortality Disparities across Races, Counties, and Race-Counties in the United States (Open Access). Here’s the most interesting finding for me:
The 12.8-y gap in life expectancy between females in Americas 1 and 7 is approximately the same as the gap between Japan, with the highest national life expectancy for females in 2001 (84.7 y), and Fiji, Nicaragua, and Lebanon…Asian females in the US have a life expectancy that is 3 y higher than that of females in Japan…For males, the 15.4-y gap in life expectancy between Asians (America 1) and high-risk urban blacks (America 8) is the same as between Iceland, with the highest national male life expectancy in 2001 (78.2 y), and Sao Tome, Belarus, and Uzbekistan…In other words, millions of Americans, distinctly identified by their sociodemographic characteristics and place of residence, have life expectancies that are similar to some low-income developing countries….
The fact that the gap in life expectancy between sociological groups in America was so high was not surprising to me. The fact that Asian American females have higher life expectancies than Japanese females was surprising. A relative lack of correlation between income and life expectancies among whites wasn’t too surprising, though the wealthy have access to better end of life care I suspect that the wear & tear of cosmopolitan life has a long term deleterious impact. Also, check this figure. The South just isn’t healthy…though have you noticed what both whites and blacks eat there???
Via John Emerson.
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