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    Why is the mortality gap growing in an age of scientific advancements?
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    Why is the mortality gap growing in an age of scientific advancements?

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    41 Comments

    2. Whornz4 on

      Is this surprising? The average age of Hawaii residents is 8 years longer than Mississippi or West Virginia residents. 

    3. new_jill_city on

      Mistrust of the medical establishment and fewer healthcare resources in Republican-dominated rural areas

    5. Son_of_Plato on

      People used to know how dumb they were and actually listen to advice and fall in line. Now everyone has access to infinite validation on the internet and think they know everything and listen to nobody.

    6. VolkRiot on

      Republicans represent a lot of poor and uneducated people looking to blame someone other than the wealthy and powerful interests that dictate their entire party’s platform.

    8. KiwasiGames on

      That graph is pretty self explanatory. The red line is flat since around 2010 and the blue line keeps dropping.

      That would suggest that people on the blue line are taking advantage of new scientific advances and red people aren’t.

    9. The_Bjorn_Identity on

      This is the kind of thing thats hard to *scientifically* pinpoint but, like, we all know why

    11. chowmushi on

      So I recently asked my doctor for a prescription to get the newly restricted COVID vaccine. I figured the idiots in the health department had made this mandatory. I found out that NYS does not restrict the COVID vaccine and I can just go get it at the local pharmacy. Maybe sensible decisions help people in blue states live longer?

    13. dogmealyem on

      Effective public health interventions are usually practical, boots on the ground stuff, not necessarily new innovations- accessible clinics, affordable preventative care, pollution control, access to nutritious food and safe housing, addiction treatment, road and pedestrian safety, that kinda thing. It’s done by infrastructure and social programs which need government investment. Republicans tend to cut those investments. 

    14. CanadianLadyMoose on

      Red states have:

      – Less and often worse education (creationism in science classes, abstinence only sex ed)

      – More guns

      – higher obesity rates

      – less access and to worse Healthcare (such as rural communities having fewer hospitals, and smaller hospitals that have to transfer patients elsewhere for procedures when they lack equipment)

      – distrust of medical science leading to lower vaccination rates, fewer checkups, less pediatric involvement, and inappropriate/harmful experimental home treatments

      – more privatized/less regulated industries and thus worse infrastructure leading to poorer air, soil, and water qualities

      – more likely to legalize and participate in inbreeding (first cousin marriages)

      – lower rates of post secondary education

      – low media literacy, low media access

    15. Gullible-Apricot3379 on

      Red counties tend to be rural. Blue counties tend to be urban.

      I wonder how this would chart against a metric like average distance from a hospital, or more specifically, from a stroke center or trauma center.

    17. pennylanebarbershop on

      I suspect the mortality gap grew even bigger during the COVID-19 pandemic when Republicans disproportionately eschewed the vaccines.

    19. SeattlePurikura on

      >During this third wave – which continued into early 2021 – the coronavirus death rate among the 20% of Americans living in counties that supported Trump by the highest margins in 2020 was about 170% of the death rate among the one-in-five Americans living in counties that supported Biden by the largest margins.

      [https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2022/03/03/the-changing-political-geography-of-covid-19-over-the-last-two-years/](https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2022/03/03/the-changing-political-geography-of-covid-19-over-the-last-two-years/)

      I read a study (trying to remember where) and the epidemiologists were shocked that literal politics alone (not the usual socioeconomic / gender / racial / region gaps) were the biggest predictor of the COVID death rate.

    21. Thin_Cable4155 on

      Republicans think that if they eat a salad someone will call them gay. And then they have to suck a dick. That’s the rules.

    23. Prasiatko on

      Could it be an Urban vs Rural divide? More likely to survive a stroke or heart attack if it happens in the middle of a city where a hospital is minutes away vs a rural town where it could be an hour to the nearest hospital which likely still doesn’t have the cutting edge equipment the city hospital does. 

    24. LateralThinkerer on

      Scientific advancement is useless if people can’t or won’t use them. I live in an area where one of the growing concerns is pertussis (whooping cough). There has been a vaccine for that since 1912, it’s freely available from health departments, and we have babies dying of it. **FFS**.

    25. om_steadily on

      That data is 6 years old, and partisanship has increased dramatically in that time. Would love to see more up to date data.

    26. asapdeze on

      I’m guessing it’s because there’s a growing gap between the rich and poor, and advancements in society are just too expensive for the everyday person.

    29. Gorillionaire83 on

      The obvious explanation here is that Republicans tend to be older so GOP counties have older populations, which tend to die more frequently.

    30. ReporterBest9598 on

      Scientific advancements come earlier to the cities where Democrats tend to reside. It could take another ten years for a midsize county in Montana to have the same hospital tech as a midsize county in California.

    33. MrMathamagician on

      Better uptake of Obamacare, Medicare expansion and healthcare safety nets surely plays a big role. Things like obesity would not change this quickly and gun violence does not move the needle visibly on a scale like this.

    35. not_kelsey_grammar on

      Some people have $, but many more do not. I think you’ll find a very strong correlation between wealth and health generally speaking.

    38. galaxyapp on

      So many narratives.

      The answer is drugs, murder, and suicide. Accidental injury is up there as well, household falls, car wrecks, etc. Also infant mortality.

      Healthcare is a footnote. Its very rare to die of a curable desease.

      Life expectancy is largely impacted by unnatural deaths which tend to occur at a younger age which has a disproportionate impact on the average.

      Edit, this particular stat could also be as simple as different age demographics, as deaths per 100k is not controlling for age. Republicans are older. https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2024/04/09/age-generational-cohorts-and-party-identification/

    39. criticalalpha on

      I’ve got all kinds of issues with this pseudoscience.

      – Rural: Probably more road deaths per capita than urban
      – Rural: Probably more physically risky occupations (agriculture, mining, oil, etc.)
      – Rural: Probably slower response times and longer distance to emergency medical care
      – Individual Red states have vastly different challenges. MS is a shooting gallery among the 15-35 black male population. WV has opiods and deep poverty. SD has Native American reservations. Montana, with the highest per capita gun ownership, has the lowest homicide rate in the nation….but high on gun suicides for older white men. I could go on….

      Trying to average out all the different factors in each of the different states into a single dot on a graph and imply it is solely based on how some fractional majority of those who actually voted in a single election to choose one person from two candidates…is just shallow stupid “thinking”.