In This Article
30-Second Summary
Headline Link: ‘Life Expectancy Falls in Poorer U.S. Counties'
Related Topics: Poverty and health care issues around the country
Background: Life expectancy rises in the United States
Opinion & Analysis: The country’s health care system needs fixing
Reference: The politics of health care, obesity and smoking
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Women in Poorer U.S. Counties Are Dying Younger
April 23, 2008 2:28 PM
by
findingDulcinea Staff
Life expectancies are shorter in regions such as Appalachia, the Mississippi river states and parts of Texas, and women are especially affected.
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A new report from the Harvard School of Public Health finds that smoking, high blood pressure and obesity are the leading causes of death in America’s poorest counties.
The research highlights a growing trend in the country. Many poor people, particularly, minorities, have inadequate access to medical care. As a result, the death rates in those populations are disproportionately high. The difference is particularly marked among women.
Race was also factored into the Harvard report. The most seriously effected counties had large black populations, but both whites and blacks living there had shorter life spans than their counterparts in more prosperous areas.
The data comes just a year after the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued a report saying U.S. life expectancy had risen to nearly 78 years in 2005, a new high in the country.
But the new information may show that just because overall life expectancy rates are higher, it does not mean the country is doing a good job when it comes to health care.
"There has been increasing disparity in health in the U.S. population for two decades," said Majid Ezzati, one of the researchers who led the study. He said that the numbers mean “we are leaving a larger and larger part of the population behind.”
The research highlights a growing trend in the country. Many poor people, particularly, minorities, have inadequate access to medical care. As a result, the death rates in those populations are disproportionately high. The difference is particularly marked among women.
Race was also factored into the Harvard report. The most seriously effected counties had large black populations, but both whites and blacks living there had shorter life spans than their counterparts in more prosperous areas.
The data comes just a year after the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued a report saying U.S. life expectancy had risen to nearly 78 years in 2005, a new high in the country.
But the new information may show that just because overall life expectancy rates are higher, it does not mean the country is doing a good job when it comes to health care.
"There has been increasing disparity in health in the U.S. population for two decades," said Majid Ezzati, one of the researchers who led the study. He said that the numbers mean “we are leaving a larger and larger part of the population behind.”
Headline Link: ‘Life Expectancy Falls in Poorer U.S. Counties'
Although life expectancy has risen in the country, the United States ranks about 42nd in the world. "One of the questions we are asking is whether our ranking in the world is getting increasingly worse because we are not doing a good job of taking care of the worst-off," Ezzati told Reuters.
Source: Reuters
Related Topics: Poverty and health care issues around the country
A new report released in Alameda County, Ca., looks at health disparities according neighborhood, income and race. “A black child in West Oakland is much more likely to be born prematurely and into poverty than a white child in the Oakland hills … As an adult, he's more prone to diabetes, heart disease, cancer or stroke. And he can expect to die nearly 15 years earlier,” reports the San Francisco Chronicle.
Source: San Francisco Chronicle
Minorities in Georgia generally have worse health and limited access to medical care than other Georgians, leading to a high rate of premature deaths among blacks, reports The Atlanta Journal Constitution. The state is trying to combat the issue with a “health equity” project, which will provide grants to groups that address conditions burdening Georgia’s minority populations.
Source: The Atlanta Journal Constitution
The CDC produced a report on the link between poverty and health in October 2007. “Encouraging citizens to influence these powerful social engines may create political will that can counter the effects of poverty and improve the health of all citizens,” concludes Dr. Lynne S. Wilcox.
Source: The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
The National Coalition on Health Care, a non-profit alliance, recently released a report on health insurance costs in America. According to national surveys, the primary reason people are uninsured is the high cost of health insurance coverage.
Source: The National Coalition on Health Care
Background: Life expectancy rises in the United States
The CDC 2007 report on life expectancy showed that U.S. life spans are longer than ever. “Over the past decade, life expectancy has increased from 75.8 years in 1995, and from 69.6 years in 1955,” Science Daily reported in September 2007.
Source: Science Daily
Opinion & Analysis: The country’s health care system needs fixing
The Orlando Sentinel criticized Florida’s House of Representatives for ignoring a plan devised by Gov. Charlie Crist that would provide affordable health insurance to the state’s uninsured. The plan makes sense, according to the editorial, because it “would increase the number of folks paying premiums to bolster the health-care system. And those folks would be healthier, saving costs over the long run.”
Source: The Orlando Sentinel
A lack of primary care physicians is another problem with the U.S. healthcare system. This means that patients face “crippling health care bills” and long emergency room rates, writes Kevin Pho in USA Today. “Primary care should be the backbone of any health care system. Countries with appropriate primary care resources score highly when it comes to health outcomes and cost. The United States takes the opposite approach by emphasizing the specialist rather than the primary care physician.”
Source: USA Today
Reference: The politics of health care, obesity and smoking
WebMD has a guide to the 2008 presidential candidates' stance on health care, including a side-by-side comparative chart of their health care plans.
Source: WebMD
FindingDulcinea provides a Web Guide to obesity, one of the health issues causing higher mortality rates in poor U.S. counties. A 2003–04 National Center for Health Statistics Survey found that almost one-third of American adults are considered obese. If the patterns of the past 20 years continue, that percentage will grow.
Source: findingDulcinea
© 2008 Dulcinea Media, Inc.
