Rural vs City death rates

[thilanliyan]

The urban-rural death divide is getting alarmingly wider for working-age Americans

The cause is unclear, but poverty and worsening health care access are likely factors.

arstechnica.com

Something else we can argue about

I'm kinda surprised there's such a big gap.

 

[Pens1566]

This is my shocked face.

 

[thilanliyan]

I wonder if this same trend applies to other countries?

 

[WelshBloke]

I wonder if this same trend applies to other countries?

I'm just pulling this out of my arse but anecdotally speaking I'd be very, very surprised if the difference over here is as high.
I live in a fairly rural area after moving out of the local city and I'd say that the obesity levels are lower in the countryside, especially in the local schools.
The UK is a lot smaller as well so even if you are in a rural area you're still not far from healthcare services.

 

[IronWing]

I'm just pulling this out of my arse but anecdotally speaking I'd be very, very surprised if the difference over here is as high.
I live in a fairly rural area after moving out of the local city and I'd say that the obesity levels are lower in the countryside, especially in the local schools.
The UK is a lot smaller as well so even if you are in a rural area you're still not far from healthcare services.

Here, obesity rates are much higher in small towns than in the large cities. Diabetes and smoking rates are also higher in rural areas. Add time to care in and the data isn’t surprising.

 

[Stokely]

There's other factors like many obstetricians leaving bass-ackwards states like Idaho over abortion restrictions. Kind of similar to teacher shortages here in FL, which is at least partly due to Desantis and his jihad on woke (stripping diversity classes, introducing the "good side of slavery" etc).

Not to worry though, Jesus will take care of you!

 

[hal2kilo]

I'm just pulling this out of my arse but anecdotally speaking I'd be very, very surprised if the difference over here is as high.
I live in a fairly rural area after moving out of the local city and I'd say that the obesity levels are lower in the countryside, especially in the local schools.
The UK is a lot smaller as well so even if you are in a rural area you're still not far from healthcare services.

Fat ratios are reversed here, especially southward. Although, my worst weight gain in my life was when I lived in Chicago. Those SNL skits with Mike Ditka rang so true. Most guys there were far from trim, so you let yourself go. Fortunately, I ended up living in one of the healthier states in the country and you have better examples to compare yourself to.

 

[Pens1566]

Fat ratios are reversed here, especially southward. Although, my worst weight gain in my life was when I lived in Chicago. Those SNL skits with Mike Ditka rang so true. Most guys there were far from trim, so you let yourself go. Fortunately, I ended up living in one of the healthier states in the country and you have better examples to compare yourself to.

I think that's a regional or geography thing. Midwest and rust belt I can totally see being generally higher up on obesity while coastal and a few other "enlightened" areas (Denver/Seattle) being healthier.

 

[MrSquished]

Definitely hear some funny stories from New Yorkers, when they have friends visit them from non-urban areas. It's always a variation of like 'Hey, it's like a (insert 10-25) minute walk, so let's go. And the reactions are 'why the hell would we walk that far'

 

[Chapbass]

Fat ratios are reversed here, especially southward. Although, my worst weight gain in my life was when I lived in Chicago. Those SNL skits with Mike Ditka rang so true. Most guys there were far from trim, so you let yourself go. Fortunately, I ended up living in one of the healthier states in the country and you have better examples to compare yourself to.

Interesting, when did you live in Chicago? The burbs you're right, but in the city neighborhoods I feel that people are relatively fit. Might not've been that way in the 80s and 90s, but nowadays pretty good.

 

[pmv]

I'd be surprised if there was such a substantial gap here. Here, I had the impression there are two basic categories - Glasgow. and everywhere that isn't Glasgow.

 

[Stokely]

You want a "fat shock", go visit China. Or at least, go visit China of 13 years ago when I went--there were some pudgy kids there, probably due to the American fast food joints that were popping up.

It was hot in the summer, everyone was walking around with their shirts half pulled up. Very, very few overweight people. Reminded me of old footage of the US from the early 1900s or so.

Not all that surprising. They mostly eat veggies, and their "sweets" are quite a bit less sugary than ours. Saw basically nobody running or working out though, unless you count trying to walk across a road with their insane traffic (makes NYC look like a polite parking lot). One other factor is that they have a ton of smokers so that probably helps with keeping weight down somewhat (again, reminds me of the old days in the US).

I flew back in on layover in Jersey and everyone looked like they'd been inflated with an air pump, it was crazy. And being somewhat overweight myself, I'm sure that's how I looked to the Chinese

 

[vi edit]

Republican policies strong at work here.

Breaking causes down by gender, rural working-age women saw a 313 percent increase in mortality from pregnancy-related conditions between the study's two time periods, the largest increase of the mortality causes.

Nice job guys. Killing your own wives for Jesus and owning the libs.

 

[WelshBloke]

I'd be surprised if there was such a substantial gap here. Here, I had the impression there are two basic categories - Glasgow. and everywhere that isn't Glasgow.

Surely running from drunken rangers fans with Stanley knives keeps people fit?!

 

[vi edit]

Red state voters have voted over and over again to defund access to rural healthcare, ban access to basic women's health, and treat women and health care professionals as criminals for making decisions that prioritize the health of a living woman over an unborn fetus.

Doctors are leaving red states by droves because of all this.

Oh and that whole "gun violence is a mental health problem" they pitch without actually funding or advocating for mental health....
Well enjoy your white male suicide rates.

This is what Republican policy looks like in action.

Dead Americans.

 

[Pens1566]

Red state voters have voted over and over again to defund access to rural healthcare, ban access to basic women's health, and treat women and health care professionals as criminals for making decisions that prioritize the health of a living woman over an unborn fetus.

Doctors are leaving red states by droves because of all this.

Oh and that whole "gun violence is a mental health problem" they pitch without actually funding or advocating for mental health....
Well enjoy your white male suicide rates.

This is what Republican policy looks like in action.

Dead Americans.

It's sort of a passive, drawn out, weaponization of federalism.

 

[fskimospy]

You want a "fat shock", go visit China. Or at least, go visit China of 13 years ago when I went--there were some pudgy kids there, probably due to the American fast food joints that were popping up.

It was hot in the summer, everyone was walking around with their shirts half pulled up. Very, very few overweight people. Reminded me of old footage of the US from the early 1900s or so.

Not all that surprising. They mostly eat veggies, and their "sweets" are quite a bit less sugary than ours. Saw basically nobody running or working out though, unless you count trying to walk across a road with their insane traffic (makes NYC look like a polite parking lot). One other factor is that they have a ton of smokers so that probably helps with keeping weight down somewhat (again, reminds me of the old days in the US).

I flew back in on layover in Jersey and everyone looked like they'd been inflated with an air pump, it was crazy. And being somewhat overweight myself, I'm sure that's how I looked to the Chinese

One thing that shouldn’t be overlooked is that most people in China are poor. Back when Americans were much skinnier they also spent a way higher proportion of their income on food.

While there are a ton of reasons Americans are so fat as compared to even our recent past one big reason is that back in the day getting fat was expensive.

 

[Paratus]

I think some of your farther looking backers of conservatism have realized that killing off your voters and not replacing them is a long term bad strategy. So instead of abandoning that strategy they are banning abortions which helps create more poor parents and more poor kids who can help replace their voters / and cheap work force as they die off early from lack of healthcare and over work.

The good news is poor rural conservatives love telling women what to do and love not being told what to do by doctors and love working long hours for low pay. So they’ll happily pay for this with their shortened lives.

 

[hal2kilo]

Interesting, when did you live in Chicago? The burbs you're right, but in the city neighborhoods I feel that people are relatively fit. Might not've been that way in the 80s and 90s, but nowadays pretty good.

Move from Lauderhill, FL to Rogers Park, Chicago (reverse commuted to Schaumburg working for Motorola, had been working at the Plantation, FL plant) 1975 to 1980. Ended up quitting Motorola and worked for a small company that made one of the best offset printers in the business Alphatype Corp. in Niles. Had to get out of Chi town and found my career job working for Interstate Electronics Corp. a division of Figgie Inernational installing, maintaining a Data Recording System on Trident submarines. This resulted in moving to Groton CT. I was the first in my family to be a corporate nomad. No 3rd generation civil servant for me ,thank you.

 

[pmv]

Surely running from drunken rangers fans with Stanley knives keeps people fit?!

I'm sure you're already familiar with this (it gets mentioned fairly often), but I gather even if you control for all that running it's still a bit mysterious. I suppose it's a sort of shorthand term for how complex and hard-to-unravel epidemiological phenomena can be.

Glasgow effect - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

I don't think there's any consistent difference between urban and rural areas in the UK - as far as I know - as wealthy people seem to be found in both rural and urban parts of this country. The most well known difference in lifespan, though, does seem to be between Glasgow and everywhere else.

 

[vi edit]

I don't think much of the world really understands how big the US is. England has about the rural area of the state of Ohio. And that state is not even in the top half in size.

 

[Exterous]

I don't think much of the world really understands how big the US is. England has about the rural area of the state of Ohio. And that state is not even in the top half in size.

We get international partners here who sometimes want to see more of the US during their visit so they'll extend the trip a couple days. To make small talk I'll ask them what they want to see "We'd like to see New York, LA and San Francisco. Maybe make it a road trip. How long of a drive is that?"

Except Aussies - they get it

 

[MrSquished]

It's always a shock when I go camping in Upstate New York or rural Pennsylvania. One of those state parks peppered in there, and sometimes there is a walmart like 20-30 minutes away which is like at a junction that services a bunch of towns up there, so it must be centralized. Anyway, you go to one of those walmart/shopping centers in general, to supply up for anything, it's fucking like another planet. I went with this girl Amy I was dating back in '22 a few times. At one Walmart to pick up something we were literally both in shock. It had been a while since I had someone to go camping with, and her too, so we hadn't been in the sticks in a bit.

It was like a planet of two legged whales and orcas. I mean it was bad. I did feel bad for these people, but then also did remind myself, most of these people are Nazis. The time to save them is long long gone. We did see confederate flags, not just on homes we passed, but literally in our campground loop. I did think to myself, my god, the minority of decent open-minded people that are stuck living here, what a hell it must be for them. I counted my blessings for winning the sperm lottery in that way.

 

[darkswordsman17]

Red state voters have voted over and over again to defund access to rural healthcare, ban access to basic women's health, and treat women and health care professionals as criminals for making decisions that prioritize the health of a living woman over an unborn fetus.

Doctors are leaving red states by droves because of all this.

Oh and that whole "gun violence is a mental health problem" they pitch without actually funding or advocating for mental health....
Well enjoy your white male suicide rates.

This is what Republican policy looks like in action.

Dead Americans.

Yup. The two largest towns in the county we were in were struggling to keep their hospitals open. Every so often someone would die and donate a chunk of money to help them, but they have been getting strangled out of being able to offer much. More and more, they were sending people to other places (an hour drive to basically anywhere significant), and if it was anything remotely serious they were basically functioning as helipads to life flight people.

My stepdad's cancer doc would visit one of the hospitals (the better of the two, which still required a 15-20 minute drive) every so often (like every 2-3 months I believe), so could do check-ups there.

Which, this is also why the tech industry is looking to move in and dominate health care as well, as they start to increase what health metrics they can track via wearables and implants, mixed with teleconferencing doctor visits, and then using AI to diagnose stuff. As fucked up as those companies are these days they probably would do better than the current insurance system, especially for early detection. Plus we already have a bunch of services where they pay doctors to sign off to send 20 year olds boner pills, rogaine, and testosterone supplements, where the doctors basically just sign (its basically like how some docs were handing out medical marijuana cards). Which, they talked about that for like remote areas where they never even had the medical infrastructure, but the US is quickly beginning to look like the divide we see in say Africa and other places.

Still, it'd be money better spent than the shitshow that is health insurance industry (that actively intentionally is letting known scammers pretending to be doctors operate and steal millions of dollars via care they didn't even provide; we're talking individual "doctors" doing that level of scam) or the hundreds of billions that's gone to Uber which mostly just put cab companies out of business then jacked up the prices and still has no clue how or if it can ever make money on food delivery (despite it costing more money than delivery used to til these companies fucked it all up - and they claim they're subsidizing the cost even which I don't know if they actually know what subsidizing actually means - if I'm still paying more for a service that isn't actually offering more I'm not being subsidized; they're beginning to offer autonomous car delivery where you have to go out and get your food out of the car and then they act like you're saving so much money because they don't charge you for the tip you put since there's no person to tip...).

This country is so fucked.

Oh, and we didn't even delve into the health care Woodstocks that occur in the South where the poorest go on journeys to make it to some racetrack where doctors donate their service for a weekend where they try to help as many people as they can. This was released in 2013 and things have not improved: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2180503/

 

[pmv]

I don't think much of the world really understands how big the US is. England has about the rural area of the state of Ohio. And that state is not even in the top half in size.

Not sure how that is relevant to the discussion. I'm well aware the US is big (and, to a large extent, empty - Americans really have zero excuse for opposing immigration). That maybe plays some tangential role in explaining the differences mentioned in the OP, but if you are saying that's the entire reason you need to supply some supporting argument.