Comments on: health disparities

By: sociosam

sociosam — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 02:53:17 +0000

Check out the PBS Unnatural Causes. It starts this Thursday evening and goes for 4 weeks. There are “previews” and “webspecials” already on-line. Not sure if the entire documentary will be on-line as they are trying to sell. It saw first 28 minutes in a special at Louisville last week and it looks very good. Check it out at: http://www.pbs.org/unnaturalcauses/

By: neal

neal — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 12:46:23 +0000

I found the article and the graph a little confusing, because it mixes individual level arguments with county level data. Counties are the units in the original study, and the comparison in the analysis is of the mortality rates between rich and poor counties. Residents of the most well-off counties are the “least deprived socioeconomic group,” regardless of individual SES. I missed this on my first read through, and I don’t think I’m alone in this. This slight-of-hand is particularly irksome as health disparities is one of those areas with “absolute vs. relative deprivation” and “what if the proper comparison for relative deprivation” debates.

By: jeremy

jeremy — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 00:10:59 +0000

Interestingly, I’m going to spend this week working on something that involves a review of the health disparities literature. But I haven’t read the NYT article because I’m still in the window where it is blocked in my browser by LeechBlock.

By: shakha

shakha — Mon, 24 Mar 2008 22:40:01 +0000

OW: I noticed this as well (the difference being among men). I wondered, however, if that was because there was some “upper limit” to life expectancy. And as women approach this limit, we wouldn’t expect that much of an increase among them (compared to others - men - who aren’t as near that limit).

By: olderwoman

olderwoman — Mon, 24 Mar 2008 22:28:04 +0000

The main things the graph says, seems to me, are that the rise in life expectancy has mostly been among men, not women, that the class gradient is much steeper among men than women, and that only higher class but not lower class women experienced an increase in life expectancy in these decades. And, of course, that women’s overall life expectancy is still higher than men’s.

Smoking plays a role in the gender patterns. I heard Sam Preston give a talk on this. A lot of the decrease in the gender gap in mortality is linked to cohort differences in the gender mix of smokers.

By: auderey

auderey — Mon, 24 Mar 2008 20:40:47 +0000

since my brain is conference-dead, i will just weigh in to say that i think the chart is particularly well done. i can even understand it (on all its levels) in my current state.

By: Kieran

Kieran — Mon, 24 Mar 2008 19:38:47 +0000

Interesting that the life expectancy of the least-deprived men in 2000 is still less than that of the most-deprived women in 1980.

By: shakha

shakha — Mon, 24 Mar 2008 18:01:02 +0000

I think the work referred to by sociolywakward is, “Education, Social Status, and Health“. They have articles on this too. I just don’t know them; I only know the book.

By: sociolyawkward

sociolyawkward — Mon, 24 Mar 2008 17:55:17 +0000

Excellent point about the liberal assumption of professors. I wonder how common this assumption is in prominent newspapers? Fairly, I suppose.

Also, in cross-national research by Ross and Mirowsky (I think) universal health care has raised average health, but maintained, and at times increased, health disparities. Personally, I think better funded and functioning schools would reduce health disparities more than universal health care.