4 ms·

Impossible to compare without controlling for demographics. White people in the US have comparable rates to Europe. Diversity means diversity in health outcome

by 0xy 9mo ago

Impossible to compare without controlling for demographics. White people in the US have comparable rates to Europe. Diversity means diversity in health outcomes, which are vastly different between groups.

deleted 9mo ago
[deleted]
Maxatar 9mo ago
>White people in the US have comparable rates to Europe. No it's not. White non Hispanic population in the U.S. has a life expectancy of 77.5, which is lower than the U.S. average life expectancy and comparable to Eastern Europe, but not Europe as a whole (life expectancy of 81.4).
mmooss 9mo ago
That needs clear causal evidence that race somehow causes health outcomes, otherwise there's nothing distinguishing it from the old racial prejudice - now including blaming the victim: There is a lot of evidence of a causal relationship between being non-white and having less access to healthcare, nutrition, and other things that affect health outcomes, and that evidence aligns well with being targets of racial discrimination. When we just repeat baseless claims about race, we risk perpetuating it. I've never seen evidence of a racial difference in accessing health care that is accessible. It's hard to believe skin color would affect that, while it's easy to believe (and witness) that it affects what you have access to.
- rayiner 9mo ago
  You shouldn’t make an assumption in either direction. There’s clearly a racial aspect to life expectancy—east asian countries tend to have higher life expectancy than other countries with similar GDP per capita: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/life-expectancy-un-vs-gdp-per-capita-wb https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/life-expectancy-un-vs-gdp.... Your argument about access to healthcare based on race doesn’t make sense either. Hispanics in the U.S. live longer than white people, despite having the highest rate of lacking health insurance.
  - mmooss 9mo ago
    > You shouldn’t make an assumption in either direction. The null hypothesis is usually that there is no effect. Otherwise we'd say 'do life forms from the Andromeda galaxy affect climate change? We have no data, so shouldn't make an assumption either way.' Correlations aren't perfect, but you'd need data correlating it with race. East Asia has many other differences such as diet. Why the drive to find an intellectual basis for discrimination based on race? It generally has only reflected biases and has had very bad consequences.
    - rayiner 9mo ago
      We already know the null hypothesis (that there will be no change) is false. So the question here is about finding the cause of why the null hypothesis is false. Ruling out one category of explanations, and, in practice, assuming a different category of explanations, is bad science. It’s also harmful. We know, for example, that south asians develop cardiac problems at lower BMIs than other groups. We know biology is a dominant factor in longevity: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/29/health/longevity-lifespan-age-genes.html https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/29/health/longevity-lifespan.... We need to follow these leads so we can give people the best medical advice. The possibility of bias isn’t an excuse. Doctors have an obligation to address medical differences that are real and exist while not succumbing to bias. You gotta walk and chew gum at the same time.

by 0xy 9mo ago

deleted 9mo ago

[deleted]

Maxatar 9mo ago

>White people in the US have comparable rates to Europe. No it's not. White non Hispanic population in the U.S. has a life expectancy of 77.5, which is lower than the U.S. average life expectancy and comparable to Eastern Europe, but not Europe as a whole (life expectancy of 81.4).

mmooss 9mo ago

That needs clear causal evidence that race somehow causes health outcomes, otherwise there's nothing distinguishing it from the old racial prejudice - now including blaming the victim: There is a lot of evidence of a causal relationship between being non-white and having less access to healthcare, nutrition, and other things that affect health outcomes, and that evidence aligns well with being targets of racial discrimination. When we just repeat baseless claims about race, we risk perpetuating it. I've never seen evidence of a racial difference in accessing health care that is accessible. It's hard to believe skin color would affect that, while it's easy to believe (and witness) that it affects what you have access to.

rayiner 9mo ago
You shouldn’t make an assumption in either direction. There’s clearly a racial aspect to life expectancy—east asian countries tend to have higher life expectancy than other countries with similar GDP per capita: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/life-expectancy-un-vs-gdp-per-capita-wb https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/life-expectancy-un-vs-gdp.... Your argument about access to healthcare based on race doesn’t make sense either. Hispanics in the U.S. live longer than white people, despite having the highest rate of lacking health insurance.
- mmooss 9mo ago
  > You shouldn’t make an assumption in either direction. The null hypothesis is usually that there is no effect. Otherwise we'd say 'do life forms from the Andromeda galaxy affect climate change? We have no data, so shouldn't make an assumption either way.' Correlations aren't perfect, but you'd need data correlating it with race. East Asia has many other differences such as diet. Why the drive to find an intellectual basis for discrimination based on race? It generally has only reflected biases and has had very bad consequences.
  - rayiner 9mo ago
    We already know the null hypothesis (that there will be no change) is false. So the question here is about finding the cause of why the null hypothesis is false. Ruling out one category of explanations, and, in practice, assuming a different category of explanations, is bad science. It’s also harmful. We know, for example, that south asians develop cardiac problems at lower BMIs than other groups. We know biology is a dominant factor in longevity: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/29/health/longevity-lifespan-age-genes.html https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/29/health/longevity-lifespan.... We need to follow these leads so we can give people the best medical advice. The possibility of bias isn’t an excuse. Doctors have an obligation to address medical differences that are real and exist while not succumbing to bias. You gotta walk and chew gum at the same time.