Poor American Women See Shorter Life Expectancy

One of the hallmarks of industrial civilization and the rise of medicine has been an increasing life expectancy. Back in the bad old days, making it to 30 was an accomplishment. Now, people live twice that long and still are active and young(ish). However, a study published in a journal of the Public Library of Science shows that poorer American women are seeing a decrease in their life expectancy.

The study found that at close to 1,000 counties in the US, where about 12% of all American women live, the life expectancy today is lower than it was in the 1980s. The PLoS study shows that the Deep South, Appalachia, and lower MidWest (that is, the poorer parts of the US) along with a single county in Maine had decreasing life expectancies among women. In the Radford City and Pulaski County areas of Virginia, the decrease was 5 years. The study also noted that men’s life expectancies are dropping by 4%.

What is compelling about this study is the absence of any ethnic or racial dimension -- these factors have no impact on the decline. What does appear to be the controlling factor is living in poor, rural environments. The last time there was a drop off in the life expectancy of American women the Spanish Influenza of 1918 was ravaging the world. This time, the culprits appear to be more controllable. The scientists involved suggest diabetes, lung cancer, emphysema and kidney failure are responsible, and those can be addressed with diet, exercise and avoiding tobacco. Majid Ezzati, of the Harvard Initiative for Global Health and a co-author of the paper, summed it up, “This is a story about smoking, blood pressure and obesity.”

Christopher J.L. Murray, a physician and epidemiologist at the University of Washington and leader of the study, told the Washington Post “I think this is a harbinger. This is not going to be isolated to this set of counties, is my guess.” He added, “If you look in Western Europe, Australia, Japan, New Zealand, we don’t see this.”

The obvious question is why not? Elizabeth G. Nabel, director of the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute of the National Institutes of Health, explained it quite simply, “The data demonstrate a very alarming and deeply concerning increase in health disparities in the United States.” That means, places where the poor have access to healthcare don’t have this phenomenon. Interestingly, the US is the only developed country that doesn’t provide healthcare to every resident, and it is the only one with decreasing life expectancies.

© Copyright 2008 by The Kensington Review, Jeff Myhre, PhD, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent. Produced using Fedora Linux.

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