A few years ago PLoS Medicine published Eight Americas: Investigating Mortality Disparities across Races, Counties, and Race-Counties in the United States. The results were:
-- Asian-Americans, per capita income of $21,566, life expectancy of 84.9 years.
-- Northland low-income rural Whites, $17,758, 79 years.
-- Middle America (mostly White), $24,640, 77.9 years.
-- Low-income Whites in Appalachia, Mississippi Valley, $16,390, 75 years.
-- Western American Indians, $10,029, 72.7 years.
-- Black Middle America, $15,412, 72.9 years.
-- Southern low-income rural Blacks, $10,463, 71.2 years.
-- High-risk urban Blacks, $14,800, 71.1 years.
That's a 13.8 year difference between inner city blacks and Asian Americans.
Now, from The health and welfare of Australia's Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples 2003:
...Indigenous life expectancy at birth is 20 years less than for the total
population, 56 years for Indigenous males compared to 77 years for all
Australian males and 63 years for Indigenous females compared to
82 years for all Australian females for the period 1999-2001....
Read the whole report for the greatly increased rates of alcoholism and other morbidity and mortality enhancing behaviors among indigenous Australians, but check out this breakdown of various increased risks for diseases (adapted from Wikipedia, but the source is the report linked above):
| Health problem | Comparative incidence rate | Comment |
|---|---|---|
| Circulatory system diseases | 2 to 10-fold | 5 to 10-fold increase in rheumatic heart disease and hypertensive disease, 2-fold increase in other heart disease, 3-fold increase in death from circulatory system disorders. Circulatory system diseases account for 24% deaths.... |
| Renal failure | 2 to 3-fold | 2 to 3-fold increase in listing on the dialysis and transplant registry, up to 30-fold increase in end stage renal disease, 8-fold increase in death rates from renal failure, 2.5% of total deaths.... |
| Communicable diseases | 10 to 70-fold | 10-fold increase in tuberculosis, Hepatitis B and Hepatitis C virus, 20-fold increase in Chlamydia, 40-fold increase in Shigellosis and Syphilis, 70-fold increase in Gonococcal infections |
| Diabetes | 3 to 4-fold | 11% incidence of Type 2 Diabetes in Indigenous Australians, 3% in non-Indigenous population. 18% of total indigenous deaths.... |
| Cot death | 2 to 3-fold | Over the period 1999-2003, in Queensland, Western Australia, South Australia and the Northern Territory, the national cot death rate for infants was three times the rate |
| Mental health | 2 to 5-fold | 5-fold increase in drug-induced mental disorders, 2-fold increase in diseases such as schizophrenia, 2 to 3-fold increase in suicide.... |
| Optometry/Ophthalmology | 2-fold | A 2-fold increase in cataracts |
| Respiratory disease | 3 to 4-fold | 3 to 4-fold increased death rate from respiratory disease accounting for 8% of total deaths |
I want to emphasize the increased rates of communicable diseases. Some of these, such as the venereal diseases, have behavior-based causes. On the other hand, the susceptibility to tuberculosis is probably in part a function of the fact that Australian Aboriginals have had less exposure to a variety of Eurasian diseases in their evolutionary history.
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Again, it is nature with nurture for disease too (genes+enviroments)
or, more specifically, gene-environment correlation and gene-environment interaction.
What's surprising about those numbers, given the past entries here emphasizing the deleterious effects of redneck drinking, eating, and smoking habits, is how little the combination of more money and a more abstemious diet adds to ones life expectancy.
Fvck it! I think I'm going to skip work today and pour myself a couple of fingers of Jack. Just as soon as I finish up these grits, gravy, and chicken-fried steak. BTW, anyone got a light?
I wish that they'd speculate about causes. I'm in the Northland rural low-income area. Possibilities include less smoking, less stress, less conflict, frugal diet, and hard work. Alcohol use is moderate to high. Asian Americans don't drink much and eat frugally, and my guess is that ones who drink and eat more like generic Americans converge to the mean.
There are pathologies both of poverty and of wealth. As I remember areas in China reached American levels of life expectancy long before they reached American levels of prosperity.
susceptibility to tuberculosis is probably in part a function of the fact that Australian Aboriginals have had less exposure to a variety of Eurasian diseases in their evolutionary history.
Maybe in part, but I feel the bigger issue is that a large proportion of indigenous Australians live in remote, overcrowded and unhygienic conditions, where specialist medical care is often several hundred miles away. I suspect the epidemic of alcoholism in such communities doesn't help either.
I would think that there is a genetic component to lifespan, as northern peoples (Scandinavians, Japanese) seem to live longer. Africans, for example, have shorter gestations, develop more quickly as toddlers, and reach puberty earlier than whites or Asians, so a shorter lifespan could be in part evidence of an accelerated life cycle.
Asian Americans don't drink much and eat frugally
You are wrong on this. Actually Asian American eat expensively both at home and out. Here is your statitistics.
http://www.bls.gov/cex/csxann06.pdf
Check page 14
Asian American spending characters show more on food less on health care. Well, "eat good food every day, keep doctors away"
Good deal:}
John Emerson: "Asian Americans don't drink much and eat frugally"
Depends, generally this is true, but subgroups of Asian Americans (Koreans and Japanese) drink a lot just like they do in their families country of origin. Japanese and Koreans are notorious drunks in Asia, this is part of social bonding, so in certain circumstances it is perfectly acceptable for a "salaryman" from a Fortune 500 to get so sloppy drunk he has to sleep it off on the sidewalk in Tokyo until the train starts up on Saturday morning, if he missed the last one.
Chinese, in my experience, do not drink nearly this much, and I would say Chinese men drink far more than women, where as Korean and Japanese women drink quite a bit, likely more than Chinese men.
I would think that there is a genetic component to lifespan, as northern peoples (Scandinavians, Japanese) seem to live longer. Africans, for example, have shorter gestations, develop more quickly as toddlers, and reach puberty earlier than whites or Asians, so a shorter lifespan could be in part evidence of an accelerated life cycle.
you need to recalibrate your signal strengths. diet and amount (e.g., obesity, consumption of milk) have bigger effects on things like puberty than ancestry. also, japan is only relatively northern. the trend isn't monotonic, look at how far south east asia is.
"Frugally" was the wrong word. "Temperately"would have been better. The people who overeat the most may be the poorest people who spend the least money, on starch and grease. Asian Americans may be picking up American ways, but I think that it's still true that, for example, they have less obesity. It's true that even quite ordinary, un-rich Asians and Asian-Americans can be "foodies" the way only yuppy Caucasians are. And that's expensive.
I was mostly thinking of Chinese, but my guess is that even Koreans and Japanese seldom drink themselves to death the way I've seen Caucasians do.
One more comment..."Asian Americans", about half of which are born in Asia. Or maybe it is half of Asians in America are born in Asia. That still means many Asian Americans born in North America grow up with eating habits more similar to Asians than to the average native born American. To see the full effect of diet on Asian American health we should likely start looking at the 2nd generation born here.