Where You Live Linked As A Factor In Life Expectancy

Where you live, combined with race and income, plays a huge role in
the nation's health disparities, differences so stark that a report issued
Monday contends it's as if there are eight separate Americas instead
of one.

Asian-American women living in Bergen County, N.J., lead the nation in
longevity, typically reaching their 91st birthdays.
Worst off are American
Indian men in swaths of South Dakota, who die around age 58 three
decades sooner.

Millions of the worst-off Americans have life expectancies typical of
developing countries, concluded Dr. Christopher Murray of the Harvard
School of Public Health.

Asian-American women can expect to live 13 years longer than low-income
black women in the rural South, for example.
That's like comparing women in wealthy Japan to those in poverty-ridden Nicaragua.
Compare those longest-living women to inner-city black men, and the life-expectancy gap is 21 years.
That's similar to the life-expectancy gap between Iceland and Uzbekistan.


SOURCE:
LiveScience.com

The level of difference inthe life expectancy is simply amazing to me,
I mean I never would have though that it could be so extreme in our
own country.


Comments, Opinions?

Key here.

Murray was surprised to find that lack of health insurance explained only a small portion of those gaps. Instead, differences in alcohol and tobacco use, blood pressure, cholesterol and obesity seemed to drive death rates.

I think it has to do more with diet and drugs. Especially diet.

For example, in the Southern US, life expectancy is lower. If you look at the diet there, you see most food is heavily fried. Also exercise and obesity rates are alot higher.

I think it has more to do with life habits, and alot of it is because there are multiple cultures.

Asians world wide have a higher life exptacy do to diet and better life habits.

That is very true, and I'm not saying, nor is the article as far as I see, saying that if you live in place A your life expectancy is drastically lower, rather it's saying it's one of the factors.

Though I really do have to agree with you that lifestyle and diet choices really do factor in more than anything.


Oh, and I did'nt mean to do this, not that your not a grea t member with equally great posts, but my finger switched when I went to click something, so...

You have voted Skadi_the_Evil_Elf for the Way Above Top Secret award.
You have used all of your votes for this month.

[edit on 9/12/2006 by iori_komei]