Where Life Expectancy is Declining
For generations of Americans, it was a given that children would live longer than their parents. But there is now mounting evidence that this enduring trend has reversed itself for the country’s least-educated whites, an increasingly troubled group whose life expectancy has fallen by four years since 1990.
Source:New York Times.
Education is key..
Sad, but not surprising when you consider the implications education has on various aspects of life.
I would venture to guess that the types of work one is confined to when uneducated would play a role in this drop in life expectancy.
I think a part of this might also be cultural: for instance, the reason Hispanics live longer might be because they have a culture that encourages care for their elderly, while among Caucasian culture the idea of retirement homes and the like is more prevelant.
very interesting…
“Some cautioned that the results could be overstated because Americans without a high school diploma — about 12 percent of the population, down from about 22 percent in 1990, according to the Census Bureau — were a shrinking group that was now more likely to be disadvantaged in ways besides education, compared with past generations.”
“‘The good news is that there are fewer people in this group,’ he said. ‘The bad news is that those who are in it are dying more quickly.'”
Public health advocates get caught up in life expectancies — they wants to rank countries’ health care systems by how long residents live. Nearly two-thirds of health care is related to lifestyle. I doubt if there’s an individual currently alive who couldn’t do something beneficial to improve their health. Thus, we contribute to our own demise by over eating and sedentary lifestyles. Does this mean the U.S. health care system is inferior because it’s not doing as good a job as it could to beat us into submission? At some point, all public health advocates can (and should) do is educate people about healthy living. Whether people follow the advice should not be a something our health care system is rated on.
It is a spurious result from a poorly done study. BTW poor health is one reason to not complete high school and with fewer woman failing to complete high school the people who fail to complete for health reasons is more significant.
One reason women are not graduating high school (for health reasons) are due to child bearing health reasons, not sickness and disease.
It’s obvious the reason why life expectancy rates are declining among less-educated white people is the lack of money available to them to afford, among other things, medical care.
My question, however, is why the difference in life expectancy rates between white people and black/hispanic people under similar conditions? That’s unclear to me.
Perhaps they should focus the part of their study on “uneducated women” on pregnancy rates among them. This seems to be a trend among the majority of white uneducated women, especially the poor class.
Floccina, it’s a very naive statement to say that the reason why most women fail to complete high school is for health reasons, most especially after the epidemic of teenager girls getting pregnant these days.
If girls weren’t irresponsible in the first place, they wouldn’t have to deal with all the trouble that comes with child bearing….and PERHAPS finish highschool and move forward.
Floccina is right, as the number of uneducated falls, then it changes how significant other variables are.