America Is a Rich Death Trap

[Celerity]

It’s not just the pandemic. For citizens of a wealthy country, Americans of every age, at every income level, are unusually likely to die, from guns, drugs, cars, and disease.

https://www.theatlantic.com/newsletters/archive/2022/09/america-mortality-life-expectancy-pandemic/671350/

https://archive.ph/qofNN



Last week, the National Center for Health Statistics alerted Americans to two facts about life and death in the U.S. The first fact was sadly unsurprising: The coronavirus pandemic killed so many people that U.S. life expectancy fell from roughly 79 in 2019 to 76 in 2021—the largest two-year decline in nearly a century. The drop was sharpest among Native Americans and Alaska Natives, whose life expectancy fell to 65, close to the national average during World War II.

Life expectancy is perhaps the most important statistic on the planet, synthesizing a country’s scientific advances, policy errors, and social sins into a single number. The number is built on a weird hypothetical. The formula for life expectancy says: If Americans lived their entire life in one year—say, 2021—repeating it over and over again like an extended Groundhog Day experiment, how long would the typical person survive? It’s a useful exercise for the purpose of capturing one year’s conditions. But it imagines a life that nobody will ever live. U.S. life expectancy will almost certainly surge in 2022 and beyond, not only because the worst of the pandemic is over, but also because the disaster accelerated technology like mRNA vaccines that could raise life expectancy in future decades.

The second fact was perhaps more alarming: The U.S. fared worse in life expectancy than other high-income countries. While most of the developed world saw conditions improve in the second year of the pandemic, more Americans died of COVID after the introduction of the vaccines than before their invention. Any explanation of this fact must begin with the American right’s bizarre rejection of the vaccines. During the Omicron wave, Americans were less likely to be vaccinated, less likely to be boosted, and significantly more likely to die of COVID than just about all peer nations. “People don’t think of blood-pressure medication as a political act, but due to the misinformation from some media and elected leaders, Americans saw vaccines as a political statement rather than a health decision,” says Joshua Sharfstein, a vice dean at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

The American mortality mystery clearly goes much deeper than the pandemic, however. The U.S. suffers from a raft of local epidemics that have turned America into the death trap of the wealthy world. Before the 1990s, average life expectancy in the U.S. was not much different than it was in Germany or the United Kingdom, as I’ve reported. But according to a paper comparing U.S. and European mortality, American babies are more likely to die before they turn 5; American teens are more likely to die before they turn 20; and American adults are more likely to die before they turn 65. “Europe has better life outcomes than the United States across the board, for white and Black people, in high-poverty areas and low-poverty areas,” says Hannes Schwandt, a Northwestern University economist and co-author of the paper. Despite our extraordinary wealth, innovation, and panoply of glittering appliances, Americans overall suffer from something like a lifelong death premium.

snip

[gab13by13]

1. The United States' Life Expectancy was falling long before the Covid pandemic.

[Kaleva]

2. Sadly, life expectancy now is the same as it was in 1996

We're doomed.

[bucolic_frolic]

3. And fad diets

Rev up the gout, kidney failure, prostate cancer, and fatty liver disease, will ya Keto?

[multigraincracker]

4. I'll have to read the article, but my first thought was

we have a higher death rate because of our "for profit" health system.

Thanks for the post.

[bucolic_frolic]

5. Doctors make you sick

because they're not proactive. They mainly detect and treat disease after it appears, and then manage it.

[multigraincracker]

7. The only thing between you, your doctor and death

is a nurse. I love mine.

[bronxiteforever]

6. K&R. The "Trumpdemic" led to so many needless deaths.

This is a great article must read.

[ck4829]

8. "from guns, drugs, cars, and disease" AKA "from freedom, freedom, freedom, and freedom"

[Johnny2X2X]

10. Yup

Diet too. Car culture and the way our cities and towns are designed keeps our steps low.

[IronLionZion]

9. People keep telling me to leave America

maybe the plan is to turn America into a shithole country that no one wants to come to.

[Ron Green]

18. I believe it's been a shithole country

for some time now.

[Johnny2X2X]

11. Race

Something that is just insane is the life expectancy of native Americans being 65. 65! That means the average Native American works their whole life, pays into social security, and then dies before they are able to collect a penny of social security.

[MichMan]

12. Median vs average would be a much more useful statistical measurement

[Heather MC]

13. "more Americans died of COVID after the introduction of the vaccines than before their invention"

This one line right here explains the stupidity of America🤦🏾?♀️
Only in America will more people die after retreatment has been created for an illness.
That was distributed and given away freely

I don't care what anybody says the vaccine wasaying was a test to see who wanted to live, and who would choose death.

This is also why I say the Republican party is the party of death, They discourage their voters from taking the vaccine. They do everything they can to make sure a gun violent stays at high levels.
And when it comes to protecting our environment let's face it they don't know what that means and nor do they care to learn.

[area51]

14. It's what happens when our govt. considers health care to be a luxury. n/t

[Bernardo de La Paz]

15. Important information. Thank you for posting

American CONservatives fail at not only governing, but they fail at safeguarding American lives. Profits are well-maintained, however.

[gab13by13]

16. Some countries have banned RoundUp

not here. I do eat organic and home grown.

[Backseat Driver]

17. Bad stress kills! Despite all safety admonitions, Americans are risk-takers

even in leisure moments. Invisible pollution has become that product of our human national energy and optimism that poisons our soil, water, and air; it interferes and changes our bodily functions and choices to be or not to be some other way.

[Hermit-The-Prog]

19. The radicalized Republican party is the American Taliban -- they want your submission or death.

Of course, if you submit to the American Taliban, you're more likely to die anyway, so fight 'em!

We can fix the damage if we vote Republicans out of office.

Roe, Roe, Roe your vote
against theocracy!
Republicans revoke your rights
and kill democracy!

Donate to 38 House candidates: https://www.democraticunderground.com/100217067267
Stick 'em up for a blue wave: https://www.democraticunderground.com/100217078977

[ThoughtCriminal]

20. Anger is also toxic

The constant need for perpetual outrage - often manufactured - is probably contributing to lower life expectancy.

We have become addicted to it. Last week there were people ready to explode - because our government was going to help people pay off crushing student debt.

To be certain there are REAL things to be angry about. But dealing with those problems productively and with a a bit of personal balance, will make life a whole lot better for everyone. Outrage for the sake of keeping people angry just makes them tools.