Life expectancy of U.S. women slips in some regions

[onehandle]

Source: LA Times

Reporting from Washington— Women in large swaths of the U.S. are dying younger than they were a generation ago, reversing nearly a century of progress in public health and underscoring the rising toll of smoking and record obesity.

Nationwide, life expectancy for American men and women has risen over the last two decades, and some U.S. communities still boast life expectancies as long as any in the world, according to newly released data. But over the last decade, the nation has experienced a widening gap between the most and least healthy places to live. In some parts of the United States, men and women are dying younger on average than their counterparts in nations such as Syria, Panama and Vietnam.

Overall, the United States is falling further behind other industrialized nations, many of which have also made greater strides in cutting child mortality and reducing preventable deaths.

In 737 U.S. counties out of more than 3,000, life expectancies for women declined between 1997 and 2007. For life expectancy to decline in a developed nation is rare. Setbacks on this scale have not been seen in the U.S. since the Spanish influenza epidemic of 1918, according to demographers.

Read more: http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-womens-health-20110615,0,1601735.story?page=1&utm_medium=feed&track=rss&utm_campaign=Feed%3A%20latimes%2Fnews%2Fnationworld%2Fnation%20%28L.A.%20Times%20-%20National%20News%29

[Jefferson23]

1. The for profit model well at work. n/t

[swilton]

2. Yes, I would say it's

working overtime!

[harmonicon]

3. and people on DU have argued that the US is still a first world country. nt.

[robcon]

4. This is a non-story. Statistically some counties grow, some decline

When it's presented as 2,263 counties out of 3,000 (75.4%) have increasing life expectancy, the data look much different.

Statistically, an average means that about half the counties are above and half below the U.S. average life expectancy.

Statistically, when the average life expectancy increases, as it has done in the U.S., more than half the counties will experience increases, while less than half will experience decreases.

That's exactly what happened.

[kenny blankenship]

5. I remember when worsening life expectancy stats came out on the Soviet Union

The news generated a lot of talk about a large empire on the verge of social collapse.

[robcon]

6. And, since the U.S. life expectancy is growing, the opposite conclusion could be reached.

n/t