4 ms·

- Infant mortality in the Mississippi River delta is higher than in some third world countries. - Roughly 1.5 million US households are living in 'extreme pove

- Infant mortality in the Mississippi River delta is higher than in some third world countries. - Roughly 1.5 million US households are living in 'extreme poverty' by global standards, meaning <$2 per day at ppp before government aid. - Hookworm is still a relatively common problem in parts of Alabama, because sanitation is nonexistent; sewage is piped from homes but dumped untreated nearby. Outside the US, it's viewed as an "underserved tropical disease" which only goes untreated in the absence of functioning medical systems. - The UN Human Rights Commission sent a special reporter to the US to study extreme poverty, who concluded that on many metrics like youth poverty rates the US is more comparable to developing or underdeveloped nations than other first world countries: https://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=22533 https://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?N... This isn't just "we could help poor people more" or "things are less nice than in Canada". Significant portions of the US, mostly in the rural Southeast and West, are literally impoverished at the same rates as mid-rank third world countries.

ncmncm 7y ago
Infant mortality overall is higher than in numerous third-world countries, not just in the Mississippi delta.
- CalRobert 7y ago
  Maternal mortality is pretty horrible too.
  - ncmncm 7y ago
    ... and still rising. Also not accidental.
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
  - 0x54D5 7y ago
    The United States isn't very united when it comes to these things. Living in the Northeast where a city might have 10 hospitals and dozens of clinics is very different than living in rural Mississippi. There's a reason those of us that live in developed parts of the US call it "fly over" country. tldr; overall averages for a country like the USA are pointless
- Bartweiss 7y ago
  Is it? I suppose it'll depend on the definition of "third world". The US ranks ~56th on infant mortality; of the countries that do better, Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina are the poorest by far. The IMF classifies both as "developing", and the World Bank calls them upper-middle-income. Even by the Cold War standard, all of them are either First or Second world. The first entry I see that clearly counts, Nauru, is about 40% worse than the US. Mississippi, though, is ~60% above the national average, with some regions well above that. Which is to say, down around Barbados for infant mortality. (Of course, I don't mean to imply that "rivaling poor and corrupt developing countries" is something to be proud of. It's just staggering to me how incredibly bad the situation in some parts of the US is.)

ncmncm 7y ago

Infant mortality overall is higher than in numerous third-world countries, not just in the Mississippi delta.

CalRobert 7y ago
Maternal mortality is pretty horrible too.
- ncmncm 7y ago
  ... and still rising. Also not accidental.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
- 0x54D5 7y ago
  The United States isn't very united when it comes to these things. Living in the Northeast where a city might have 10 hospitals and dozens of clinics is very different than living in rural Mississippi. There's a reason those of us that live in developed parts of the US call it "fly over" country. tldr; overall averages for a country like the USA are pointless
Bartweiss 7y ago
Is it? I suppose it'll depend on the definition of "third world". The US ranks ~56th on infant mortality; of the countries that do better, Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina are the poorest by far. The IMF classifies both as "developing", and the World Bank calls them upper-middle-income. Even by the Cold War standard, all of them are either First or Second world. The first entry I see that clearly counts, Nauru, is about 40% worse than the US. Mississippi, though, is ~60% above the national average, with some regions well above that. Which is to say, down around Barbados for infant mortality. (Of course, I don't mean to imply that "rivaling poor and corrupt developing countries" is something to be proud of. It's just staggering to me how incredibly bad the situation in some parts of the US is.)