6 ms·

So... US being 46th in the world for life expectancy (behind Cuba, ffs...) isn't relevant because? Just saying, there's a lot of first world countries with far

So... US being 46th in the world for life expectancy (behind Cuba, ffs...) isn't relevant because? Just saying, there's a lot of first world countries with far higher life expectancy than the US. Access to healthcare might be an answer. (Probably not the only answer though, but likely other answers will be aligned similarly)

sweezyjeezy 5y ago
Here's something with some evidence: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3222401/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3222401/ > Conclusions. The high prevalence of obesity in the United States contributes substantially to its poor international ranking in longevity.
dunkelheit 5y ago
> Access to healthcare might be an answer. (Probably not the only answer though, but likely other answers will be aligned similarly) I wonder how much of this is explained by the obesity epidemic. And this isn't something that is solved by better access to healthcare - the best treatment that modern medicine has to offer (diet and exercise) is kind of obvious and accessible to everyone. One can argue that access to healthy and cheap nutrition options matters, but again, this is not something that one would classify as "healthcare".
- ako 5y ago
  Not sure if healthy food is accessible to everyone: if you're juggling 2 or 3 low-paying jobs you neither have the money nor time to buy and prepare healthy food. In the US fastfood is often cheaper than healthy food.
  - supportlocal4h 5y ago
    You're first sentence points out there are multiple budgets at play (time, money) so it's hard to dispute the ambiguous conclusion. I would guess that your conclusion is true by definition everywhere including the US in terms of time budget. I'm skeptical of its truth for any other budget.
  - rayiner 5y ago
    This is a feel-good trope that doesn’t remotely reflect the typical situation facing lower income people. Fast food is cultural, not economic. If you go to poor Asian and Latino neighborhoods in urban areas, you’ll see ethnic grocery stores underpinning a food culture that is independent of fast food. My poor Bangladeshi immigrant relatives don’t eat fast food; they buy food from the halal grocer and cook. What’s been destroyed among native born American poor people is that food culture.
    - yardie 5y ago
      Fast food is both cultural and economic. Many immigrant households are very traditional and the woman take on the duty of buying and preparing foods. If you are single American, or single parent, working multiple jobs economically it's more convenient to eat fast food. I have rarely seen immigrant men from non-western countries in any type of grocery store shopping for fresh produce.
      - rayiner 5y ago
        Being single for an extended time in adulthood, or being a single parent, are cultural as well. And I think the jury is out on “fresh produce” being the key differentiator. It’s hard to find real science that backs that theory up.
      - pvg 5y ago
        I have rarely seen immigrant men from non-western countries in any type of grocery store shopping for fresh produce. https://i.redd.it/h4plv5xwq4861.jpg https://i.redd.it/h4plv5xwq4861.jpg
    - tptacek 5y ago
      There's something to this, but one has to ask: were your poor Bangladeshi immigrant relatives redlined out of home ownership? I live on a redline boundary street in Chicago and there is a reason that the grocery stores that serve the Black community across that street are on my side of the line.
      - 5y ago
  - TimedToasts 5y ago
    You don't need extra time to eat less. Regardless of how much time someone has, you can only _gain_ time in your day by spending less time eating.
thaumasiotes 5y ago
> So... US being 46th in the world for life expectancy (behind Cuba, ffs...) isn't relevant because? > Access to healthcare might be an answer. (Probably not the only answer though, but likely other answers will be aligned similarly) I look forward to hearing how Mexican Americans enjoy better access to healthcare than non-Hispanic white Americans.
- throw55 5y ago
rayiner 5y ago
It’s not relevant because the life expectancy numbers don’t correlate well with health insurance access. Asian Americans have slightly lower health insurance access than whites, but live longer than Asians in rich Asian countries with universal healthcare. Hispanic Americans have much lower rates of insurance access, but live as long as people in Denmark. Low American life expectancy seems to result from other factors (obesity, high homicide rates, etc).
- random314 5y ago
  That's not how you build correlational models. You have to build a survival model and estimate a hazard ratio by access to health insurance, along with other features such as race etc. Otherwise wevcan cherry pick pairs of data points to match up with whatever belief one likes to hold. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survival_analysis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survival_analysis Even survival analysis is far from perfect because its correlational, not causal. There are other techniques such as front door criteria etc. to figure these out. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Book_of_Why https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Book_of_Why
- shard 5y ago
  > Asian Americans have slightly lower health insurance access than whites, but live longer than Asians in rich Asian countries with universal healthcare This is contrary to what I recall reading previously, so I looked up some sources. One study says: “When people come to the United States, they are positively selected, so people coming here are usually younger and healthier,” Baluran said. “What researchers found is that the longer people [immigrants] stay in the U.S., their health begins to deteriorate; by the time [they] reach the second and third generation, the health advantage that immigrants have almost disappeared.” https://asamnews.com/2021/12/23/immigrants-asians-live-healthier-lives-than-those-asians-in-the-country-longer/ https://asamnews.com/2021/12/23/immigrants-asians-live-healt...
  - random314 5y ago
    Fundamentally, the original post is simply cherry picking data. Once you cherry pick, you can arrive at whatever conclusion you like. For example, the data distortion caused by having younger asians in the United states is an example of Simpson's paradox. These can be eliminated using survival analysis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survival_analysis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survival_analysis
inglor_cz 5y ago
Lifestyle could explain a lot. Standard American diet is horrible and the fact that majority of Americans survive on it until their 70s is a medical miracle. But there are interesting subpopulations. Amish people tend to be healthier in their old age than an average American [0], ethough their total life expectancy is lower (but there is a subset that lives much longer - on average to 85 - and they are subject to genetic studies [1]). Of course, only 4 per cent of Amish are obese, even though their typical diet is not exactly vegetarian (meat, dairy products etc.) [0] https://time.com/5159857/amish-people-stay-healthy-in-old-age-heres-their-secret/ https://time.com/5159857/amish-people-stay-healthy-in-old-ag... [1] https://news.feinberg.northwestern.edu/2017/11/amish-longevity-may-be-due-to-genetic-fountain-of-youth/ https://news.feinberg.northwestern.edu/2017/11/amish-longevi... Mormons also seem to be healthier than average Americans [2]. Of course, the religious ban on tobacco and alcohol might help with that. [2] https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1997-04-26-me-52680-story.html https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1997-04-26-me-52680-...
- someguydave 5y ago
  Do you think the carb rich Japanese diet is also horrible?
  - stocknoob 5y ago
    I don’t know, are they averaging 3700 kcal of carbs a day?
refurb 5y ago
Life expectancy is a terrible measure for quality of healthcare. First off, it’s not necessarily calculated the same when it comes to stillbirths versus infant deaths, which drastically skew numbers. Second, other factors unrelated or weakly correlated to healthcare systems can impact life expectancy (alcohol use, diet, traffic accidents, suicide). Third, racial differences in longevity.
- DanBC 5y ago
  How is treatment for substance misuse or suicide not healthcare? > Third, racial differences in longevity. You may want to investigate the healthcare reasons for these.

sweezyjeezy 5y ago

Here's something with some evidence: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3222401/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3222401/ > Conclusions. The high prevalence of obesity in the United States contributes substantially to its poor international ranking in longevity.

dunkelheit 5y ago

> Access to healthcare might be an answer. (Probably not the only answer though, but likely other answers will be aligned similarly) I wonder how much of this is explained by the obesity epidemic. And this isn't something that is solved by better access to healthcare - the best treatment that modern medicine has to offer (diet and exercise) is kind of obvious and accessible to everyone. One can argue that access to healthy and cheap nutrition options matters, but again, this is not something that one would classify as "healthcare".

ako 5y ago
Not sure if healthy food is accessible to everyone: if you're juggling 2 or 3 low-paying jobs you neither have the money nor time to buy and prepare healthy food. In the US fastfood is often cheaper than healthy food.
- supportlocal4h 5y ago
  You're first sentence points out there are multiple budgets at play (time, money) so it's hard to dispute the ambiguous conclusion. I would guess that your conclusion is true by definition everywhere including the US in terms of time budget. I'm skeptical of its truth for any other budget.
- rayiner 5y ago
  This is a feel-good trope that doesn’t remotely reflect the typical situation facing lower income people. Fast food is cultural, not economic. If you go to poor Asian and Latino neighborhoods in urban areas, you’ll see ethnic grocery stores underpinning a food culture that is independent of fast food. My poor Bangladeshi immigrant relatives don’t eat fast food; they buy food from the halal grocer and cook. What’s been destroyed among native born American poor people is that food culture.
  - yardie 5y ago
    Fast food is both cultural and economic. Many immigrant households are very traditional and the woman take on the duty of buying and preparing foods. If you are single American, or single parent, working multiple jobs economically it's more convenient to eat fast food. I have rarely seen immigrant men from non-western countries in any type of grocery store shopping for fresh produce.
    - rayiner 5y ago
      Being single for an extended time in adulthood, or being a single parent, are cultural as well. And I think the jury is out on “fresh produce” being the key differentiator. It’s hard to find real science that backs that theory up.
    - pvg 5y ago
      I have rarely seen immigrant men from non-western countries in any type of grocery store shopping for fresh produce. https://i.redd.it/h4plv5xwq4861.jpg https://i.redd.it/h4plv5xwq4861.jpg
  - tptacek 5y ago
    There's something to this, but one has to ask: were your poor Bangladeshi immigrant relatives redlined out of home ownership? I live on a redline boundary street in Chicago and there is a reason that the grocery stores that serve the Black community across that street are on my side of the line.
    - 5y ago
- TimedToasts 5y ago
  You don't need extra time to eat less. Regardless of how much time someone has, you can only _gain_ time in your day by spending less time eating.

thaumasiotes 5y ago

> So... US being 46th in the world for life expectancy (behind Cuba, ffs...) isn't relevant because? > Access to healthcare might be an answer. (Probably not the only answer though, but likely other answers will be aligned similarly) I look forward to hearing how Mexican Americans enjoy better access to healthcare than non-Hispanic white Americans.

throw55 5y ago

rayiner 5y ago

It’s not relevant because the life expectancy numbers don’t correlate well with health insurance access. Asian Americans have slightly lower health insurance access than whites, but live longer than Asians in rich Asian countries with universal healthcare. Hispanic Americans have much lower rates of insurance access, but live as long as people in Denmark. Low American life expectancy seems to result from other factors (obesity, high homicide rates, etc).

random314 5y ago
That's not how you build correlational models. You have to build a survival model and estimate a hazard ratio by access to health insurance, along with other features such as race etc. Otherwise wevcan cherry pick pairs of data points to match up with whatever belief one likes to hold. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survival_analysis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survival_analysis Even survival analysis is far from perfect because its correlational, not causal. There are other techniques such as front door criteria etc. to figure these out. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Book_of_Why https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Book_of_Why
shard 5y ago
> Asian Americans have slightly lower health insurance access than whites, but live longer than Asians in rich Asian countries with universal healthcare This is contrary to what I recall reading previously, so I looked up some sources. One study says: “When people come to the United States, they are positively selected, so people coming here are usually younger and healthier,” Baluran said. “What researchers found is that the longer people [immigrants] stay in the U.S., their health begins to deteriorate; by the time [they] reach the second and third generation, the health advantage that immigrants have almost disappeared.” https://asamnews.com/2021/12/23/immigrants-asians-live-healthier-lives-than-those-asians-in-the-country-longer/ https://asamnews.com/2021/12/23/immigrants-asians-live-healt...
- random314 5y ago
  Fundamentally, the original post is simply cherry picking data. Once you cherry pick, you can arrive at whatever conclusion you like. For example, the data distortion caused by having younger asians in the United states is an example of Simpson's paradox. These can be eliminated using survival analysis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survival_analysis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survival_analysis

inglor_cz 5y ago

Lifestyle could explain a lot. Standard American diet is horrible and the fact that majority of Americans survive on it until their 70s is a medical miracle. But there are interesting subpopulations. Amish people tend to be healthier in their old age than an average American [0], ethough their total life expectancy is lower (but there is a subset that lives much longer - on average to 85 - and they are subject to genetic studies [1]). Of course, only 4 per cent of Amish are obese, even though their typical diet is not exactly vegetarian (meat, dairy products etc.) [0] https://time.com/5159857/amish-people-stay-healthy-in-old-age-heres-their-secret/ https://time.com/5159857/amish-people-stay-healthy-in-old-ag... [1] https://news.feinberg.northwestern.edu/2017/11/amish-longevity-may-be-due-to-genetic-fountain-of-youth/ https://news.feinberg.northwestern.edu/2017/11/amish-longevi... Mormons also seem to be healthier than average Americans [2]. Of course, the religious ban on tobacco and alcohol might help with that. [2] https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1997-04-26-me-52680-story.html https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1997-04-26-me-52680-...

someguydave 5y ago
Do you think the carb rich Japanese diet is also horrible?
- stocknoob 5y ago
  I don’t know, are they averaging 3700 kcal of carbs a day?

refurb 5y ago

Life expectancy is a terrible measure for quality of healthcare. First off, it’s not necessarily calculated the same when it comes to stillbirths versus infant deaths, which drastically skew numbers. Second, other factors unrelated or weakly correlated to healthcare systems can impact life expectancy (alcohol use, diet, traffic accidents, suicide). Third, racial differences in longevity.

DanBC 5y ago
How is treatment for substance misuse or suicide not healthcare? > Third, racial differences in longevity. You may want to investigate the healthcare reasons for these.