I think this case is interesting in that a specific group’s life expectancy went down. If it was simply a situation where everyone else’s went up instead I probably wouldn’t care. But it seems like something has changed for this demographic and I’m curious as to what.
What is it about the highschool diploma? And why specifically for whites?
People who dysfunctional overall are less likely to get high school diplomas, and less likely to take care of their health.
That’s obvious. What’s not obvious is why there is a racial factor. I would have expected all poor uneducated women to have a similar loss in life expectancy. But that’s not what happened. Some poor uneducated women had theirs go up.
It is obvious, but you did ask. As for the racial part, well, maybe women of other races didn’t cut down on the number without a HS diploma like white women did.
The article notes that, even accounting for the reduction in the number of white women without a HS diploma, their life expectancy still declined. It does not, at this time, appear to be a glitch of statistics.
It’s like I said before. White trash people have it really, really bad…and it’s getting worse for them.
I guarantee most of you have never met these kinds of people…or even if you have, you’ve never sat down with them and talked about their lives, their families, and their upbringing in great detail.
I definitely have.
I wonder, though, if there are regional differences in these statistics.
Ok, so it’s not THE most alarming thing that’s every been printed. It’s just alarming. Can we get back to the topic at hand and off this stupid detour?
I don’t have any idea why poor whites would be hit harder than other groups in terms of life expectancy. I wonder if it could be the rural environments many of them live in. Poor blacks and Hispanics cluster in cities, where there is free medical care in the form of emergency rooms that are readily accessible. If you are living in a trailer in the sticks, esp. if you have no car or phone, you might have a much rougher time getting to the emergency room (which is about the only source of medical care the poor in our society have). And it will certainly take longer.
The article addresses the likely causes. An increase in smoking rates, health care is harder to get than in the past, rising obesity rates and more Rx drug abuse.
Plus the article implies that the % of whites w/o a diploma going from 22% to 12% means the more dysfunctional whites are the only ones left. So it is likely the more functional whites w/o an education were lifting up the life expectancy of the less functional. Now those whites got a GED or finished HS. It is kind of like prison recidivism as a metaphor. If you take the most functional 50% of prisoners and take them out of the equation, the bottom 50% look worse because they aren’t being held up by the levels of good behavior and rehabilitation seen by the top 50%. So you have more risky behavior combined with less access to health care combined with the more functional whites whose behavior would lift the life expectancy of the rest getting a HS diploma and leaving the rest behind.
I would consider my mom part of that group. She dropped out of high school in 9th grade. If it weren’t for my dad and his income, who knows where she would be. She smokes, is a shut in and refuses to sees a doctor. We don’t expect her to live much longer than 70-75.
I wouldn’t consider this the same as AIDS though. My understanding is AIDS took 20-30 years off life expectancy in Africa when it hit. Life expectancy was topping 60, then HIV hit and it dropped to 35 in some places. This is a 4 year decline.
Is there some huge difference between knowing white people like this and black people like this? Because I’ve known several black people from rural Mississippi and Alabama where the educational system is amazingly bad. Some of them can hardly read. I’ve never doubted that there are white people in similar positions. Actually I do know white people (two sisters, and to a lesser extent, their mom) too, but I only know them online. I’ve known them that way for many years though. Very backwards people, and they didn’t finish HS either.
I’d be interested to know if there are regional differences too.
Considering that the OP thinks it may be indicative of total societal collapse, it’s not exactly a detour.
I have no scientific proof, but I get the feeling that black people of similar situation are less isolated, and have better social connections.
I also think those better social connections contribute to health and a longer lifespan, assuming I’m right in my guess.
I said the most comparable example (in Russia) occurred in the wake of a societal collapse.
That could be. Black people are more into church than white people, in general, but I don’t know if that’s still true with poor rural white people.
You said that it **only **happens in the case of deadly epidemics or total societal collapse.