- Life expectancy study: It’s not just what you make, it’s where you live, By Jim Zarroli, April 11, 2016, National Public Radio: “Poor people who reside in expensive, well-educated cities such as San Francisco tend to live longer than low-income people in less affluent places, according to a study of more than a billion Social Security and tax records. The study, published in JAMA, the Journal of the American Medical Association, bolsters what was already well known — the poor tend to have shorter lifespans than those with more money. But it also says that among low-income people, big disparities exist in life expectancy from place to place, said Raj Chetty, professor of economics at Stanford University…”
- Why the poor die young, By Derek Thompson, April 12, 2016, The Atlantic: “‘Geography is destiny.’ Economists once used this theory to try to explain the difference between rich and poor countries. But in the last few years, something like it has become a grand theory for rich and poor within the United States. Researchers have shown that where a family lives dramatically shapes children’s education, income, and their potential to earn more than their parents. Geography’s most consequential legacy might be life itself. In a new study released Monday morning and reported in The New York Times, the life expectancy of the poorest Americans can differ by many years in neighborhoods that are fewer than 100 miles apart…”
- The rich live longer everywhere. For the poor, geography matters, By Neil Irwin and Quoctrung Bui, April 11, 2016, New York Times: “For poor Americans, the place they call home can be a matter of life or death. The poor in some cities — big ones like New York and Los Angeles, and also quite a few smaller ones like Birmingham, Ala. — live nearly as long as their middle-class neighbors or have seen rising life expectancy in the 21st century. But in some other parts of the country, adults with the lowest incomes die on average as young as people in much poorer nations like Rwanda, and their life spans are getting shorter. In those differences, documented in sweeping new research, lies an optimistic message: The right mix of steps to improve habits and public health could help people live longer, regardless of how much money they make…”
- Where living poor means dying young, By Emily Badger and Christopher Ingraham, April 11, 2016, Washington Post: “This city is full of parks that invite exercise and bike lanes that make commuting a workout. It’s home to social services that tend the poor, and taxpayers who willingly fund them. Smoking is banned at restaurants and bars — as well as in workplaces, at bus stops, throughout public housing, at charity bingo games and even inside stores that sell tobacco. These factors may help explain why the poor live longer in the San Francisco area than they do in much of the rest of the country…”
- A new divide in American death, By Joel Achenbach, Dan Keating, April 10, 2016, Washington Post: “White women have been dying prematurely at higher rates since the turn of this century, passing away in their 30s, 40s and 50s in a slow-motion crisis driven by decaying health in small-town America, according to an analysis of national health and mortality statistics by The Washington Post. Among African Americans, Hispanics and even the oldest white Americans, death rates have continued to fall. But for white women in what should be the prime of their lives, death rates have spiked upward. In one of the hardest-hit groups — rural white women in their late 40s — the death rate has risen by 30 percent…”
Poverty-related issues in the news, from the Institute for Research on Poverty