Life expectancy falls in poorer U.S. counties: study (especially among women)

[ensho]

http://www.reuters.com/article/scienceNews/idUSN2146521720080422


Life expectancy may have reached an all-time high for the United States, but it is declining in many poor counties, especially among women, researchers reported on Monday.

Smoking, obesity and high blood pressure are taking the lives of women in Appalachia, Mississippi River states and parts of Texas, a team at Harvard School of Public Health reported.

"There has been increasing disparity in health in the U.S. population for two decades," said Majid Ezzati of the school's department of population and international health, who led the study.

"The people who are worst off are either not getting better or are worse off" than they had been, Ezzati added in a telephone interview.

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"Female mortality increased in a large number of counties, primarily because of chronic diseases related to smoking, overweight and obesity, and high blood pressure," the researchers wrote in the Public Library of Science journal PLoS Medicine.

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"There was also an important influence of HIV/AIDS and homicide among men."

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"To have 20 years of decline for about one out of five American women, it is something that is rather unprecedented," he added. "We are leaving a larger and larger part of the population behind."
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we need more women in county and state offices

[Cresent City Kid]

1. Wealth = Health

NBC news covered this story last night, and totally missed the long-proven connection between income and life expectancy.