3 ms·

According to the original article, life expectancy differences "were not significantly correlated with access to medical care, physical environmental factors, i

According to the original article, life expectancy differences "were not significantly correlated with access to medical care, physical environmental factors, income inequality, or labor market conditions." https://jama.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=2513561 https://jama.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=2513561 So in fact doing something about the "divide between the rich and poor" is unlikely to help. It might even be counterproductive if it reduces income (which is highly correlated) and if this effect is causal.

chatwinra 11y ago
The point you're referring to relates specifically to geographic differences. From the results section: "inequality in life expectancy increased over time. Between 2001 and 2014, life expectancy increased by 2.34 years for men and 2.91 years for women in the top 5% of the income distribution, but by only 0.32 years for men and 0.04 years for women in the bottom 5% (P < .001 for the differences for both sexes)." So I think the co-authors had a point when they talked about retirement age!
- yummyfajitas 11y ago
  See Figure 8 for numbers on "Population-weighted univariate Pearson correlations estimated between local area characteristics and race- and ethnicity-adjusted expected age at death for 40-year-olds in the bottom income quartile." The CIs for income inequality (as well as health care factors and local labor market conditions) do not exclude zero.
Certhas 11y ago
But life expectancy in many countries that are poorer than the US is higher, so it's not absolute wealth that matters either. https://data.oecd.org/healthstat/life-expectancy-at-birth.htm https://data.oecd.org/healthstat/life-expectancy-at-birth.ht...
- yummyfajitas 11y ago
  I suspect that genetics (not measured by this study) and lifestyle factors (big according to this) are probably the dominant factors. I expect that Delhi/Shanghai magnitude physical environment factors is also important. But luckily the US is a lot cleaner.

chatwinra 11y ago

The point you're referring to relates specifically to geographic differences. From the results section: "inequality in life expectancy increased over time. Between 2001 and 2014, life expectancy increased by 2.34 years for men and 2.91 years for women in the top 5% of the income distribution, but by only 0.32 years for men and 0.04 years for women in the bottom 5% (P < .001 for the differences for both sexes)." So I think the co-authors had a point when they talked about retirement age!

yummyfajitas 11y ago
See Figure 8 for numbers on "Population-weighted univariate Pearson correlations estimated between local area characteristics and race- and ethnicity-adjusted expected age at death for 40-year-olds in the bottom income quartile." The CIs for income inequality (as well as health care factors and local labor market conditions) do not exclude zero.

Certhas 11y ago

But life expectancy in many countries that are poorer than the US is higher, so it's not absolute wealth that matters either. https://data.oecd.org/healthstat/life-expectancy-at-birth.htm https://data.oecd.org/healthstat/life-expectancy-at-birth.ht...

yummyfajitas 11y ago
I suspect that genetics (not measured by this study) and lifestyle factors (big according to this) are probably the dominant factors. I expect that Delhi/Shanghai magnitude physical environment factors is also important. But luckily the US is a lot cleaner.