HEALTH & POVERTY: A recent study reveals poor women living in poverty stricken counties in the United States are not living as long as they did in the 1980s. Overall, Americans do not live as long as many Asians and most Europeans.

A new study shows that life expectancy has shortened for residents of some counties in the U.S. Initially life expectancy went up for all Americans in every county. Then, in the 1980s, that trend reversed for people—especially women—living in poorer counties. The gap between the well-off and the worst-off widens.

Health Inequity Returns

With all the medical advances over the last 40 years, you’d expect people would be living longer. However, almost 20% of American women are not living any longer than they did in 1961—and 12% of them are actually living less than they did just 20 years ago.

Men, on the other hand, fared better, with only 4% of them living as long or not as long as they were in 1961.

Harvard Global Health Initiative research Majid Ezzati co-authored the study with Christopher Murray, director of the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington. They and their colleagues published it April 22, 2008. Using data from the National Center for Health Statistics and Census Bureau, they compared death rates in counties across the country from 1961 to 1999. Here’s what they found:

• Overall life expectancy in the U.S. increased
  • From 67 to 74 years for men
  • From 74 to 80 years for women
• Deaths from heart disease and stroke fell
  • Credited to improved treatment and prevention of cardiovascular disease
• Starting in the 1980s, life expectancy reversed and fell in poor counties, especially for women
  • Deaths from cardiovascular disease leveled off and/or increased
  • Other diseases increased
    • lung cancer, chronic lung disease and diabetes, kidney failure in both sexes
    • HIV/AIDS and homicide in men

Well-off Live Longer than Worst-off

While the national life expectancy continued to increase after 1980, it decreased for people living in the Deep South, along the Mississippi River, in Appalachia, in the southern part of the Midwest, and parts of Texas. All told, life expectancy dropped in about 1,000 counties.

About 12% of American women live in these counties. Only about 4% of men are affected. Race was not as much a predictor as economic status.

For instance, average life expectancy dropped by as many as five years in some poor counties in Virginia. On the other end of the spectrum, people living in the Bay Area of northern California can expect to live longer than most other Americans. On average, babies born in 1999 in Silicon Valley can expect to live 8 years longer than their grandparents, to 80 years old.

Dwindling Access to Health Care to Blame?

Many of the diseases that increased among the poor—lung cancer, emphysema, diabetes, and kidney failure—can be blamed on

• smoking,
• high blood pressure,
• obesity, and
• a lack of health resources in these counties.

The researchers say that these results point to increasing problems in the American health care system. Residents of poorer counties simply don’t have access to the same kinds of care that more advantaged citizens enjoy.

The United States ranks 45 when compared to other industrialized nations’ average life expectancy rates. The Japanese live longer than Americans by four years, and the French by two-and-a-half years. This disparity appears to be getting worse. "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," said Ezzati. (Reuters, 4/22/08)

Copyright © 2009 Informify

Sources

Life Expectancy Drops for Some U.S. Women (Washington Post)

Life expectancy falls in poorer U.S. counties: study (Reuters)

JUS Life Expectancy Falls for Large Segment of Population (Voice of America)

The Reversal of Fortunes: Trends in County Mortality and Cross-County Mortality Disparities in the United States (PLOS Medicine)

Expect to live longer if you call Bay Area home (San Jose Mercury News)

List of countries by life expectancy

Question for Readers:

Do you believe a universal health care program would help poor American women live longer?