3 ms·

The data lists US as ranked #1 for health??? Rubbish. Rather than taking real data such as life expectancy, they seem to be asking population "Are you happy wi

by axod 16y ago

The data lists US as ranked #1 for health??? Rubbish. Rather than taking real data such as life expectancy, they seem to be asking population "Are you happy with health". So basically, rather than measuring 'happiness', this is measuring how deluded/subdued the population is.

yummyfajitas 16y ago
The US has very good life expectancy once you slice the data appropriately. Not #1 by any means, but better than most people thing. A white American male will live 76 years, a white American female will live 81 years. That's less than a year short of life expectancies in Finland (76.1 and 82.4) or Austria (76.9 and 82.6), both of which are predominantly white). http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/06/11/AR2008061101570.html http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/06... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_life_expectancy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_life_expec... Similarly, Japanese Americans live 84 years while Japanese only live 82 years. http://minorityhealth.hhs.gov/templates/browse.aspx?lvl=2&lvlID=53 http://minorityhealth.hhs.gov/templates/browse.aspx?lvl=2&#3... http://www.google.com/publicdata?ds=wb-wdi&met=sp_dyn_le00_in&idim=country:JPN&dl=en&hl=en&q=japan+life+expectancy http://www.google.com/publicdata?ds=wb-wdi&met=sp_dyn_le... The only reason the US appears to fare poorly in life expectancy comparisons is the composition effect. We have a lot of short lived Blacks, while most other first world countries don't. [edit: Thanks gjm for the correction on Simpson's Paradox. It's only the composition effect (which is the driver of Simpson's Paradox, but is not equivalent to it).]
- gjm11 16y ago
  That's only Simpson's paradox if black people in the US are living longer than black people in other first-world countries. If what's actually happening is that the US has more black people and they're not living as long as their counterparts in (say) Finland or Austria, that's a different matter. (Though the effect that drives Simpson's paradox could still be the largest cause of the US's not-so-good performance in overall life expectancy.)
notahacker 16y ago
Looking at the raw data, this seems to mostly be down to the outlying high level of healthcare spend (which is for most nations strongly positively correlated with better outcomes).

by axod 16y ago

yummyfajitas 16y ago

The US has very good life expectancy once you slice the data appropriately. Not #1 by any means, but better than most people thing. A white American male will live 76 years, a white American female will live 81 years. That's less than a year short of life expectancies in Finland (76.1 and 82.4) or Austria (76.9 and 82.6), both of which are predominantly white). http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/06/11/AR2008061101570.html http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/06... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_life_expectancy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_life_expec... Similarly, Japanese Americans live 84 years while Japanese only live 82 years. http://minorityhealth.hhs.gov/templates/browse.aspx?lvl=2&lvlID=53 http://minorityhealth.hhs.gov/templates/browse.aspx?lvl=2&#3... http://www.google.com/publicdata?ds=wb-wdi&met=sp_dyn_le00_in&idim=country:JPN&dl=en&hl=en&q=japan+life+expectancy http://www.google.com/publicdata?ds=wb-wdi&met=sp_dyn_le... The only reason the US appears to fare poorly in life expectancy comparisons is the composition effect. We have a lot of short lived Blacks, while most other first world countries don't. [edit: Thanks gjm for the correction on Simpson's Paradox. It's only the composition effect (which is the driver of Simpson's Paradox, but is not equivalent to it).]

gjm11 16y ago
That's only Simpson's paradox if black people in the US are living longer than black people in other first-world countries. If what's actually happening is that the US has more black people and they're not living as long as their counterparts in (say) Finland or Austria, that's a different matter. (Though the effect that drives Simpson's paradox could still be the largest cause of the US's not-so-good performance in overall life expectancy.)

notahacker 16y ago

Looking at the raw data, this seems to mostly be down to the outlying high level of healthcare spend (which is for most nations strongly positively correlated with better outcomes).