Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
The Corrosion Of American Health: An Analysis Of Mortality Rates
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. (Achenbach and Keating, 4/10)
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 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. (Zarroli, 4/11)
It's widely known that your chances of surviving cancer are better if you're married. But a new California-based study released today reports that the benefits of being married also vary by sex, race, ethnicity and birthplace, with white bachelors and white single women in the Golden State doing worse than their married counterparts. (Seipel, 4/11)
Meanwhile, the hardships of growing old in rural America —
What’s it like to grow old in rural America? Millie Goolsby is a retired nurse, so when she experienced chest pain five years ago, she recognized the signs of a potential heart attack. But her family didn’t call 911. The drive from her home to the hospital in Klamath Falls, Ore., requires at least half an hour. ... Through his 95th summer, Bill Kolacny was tending the tomato patch on the 400-acre Wyoming ranch where he and his wife, Beverly, had lived for 25 years. When he began to weaken from heart failure in December, all he wanted was to die in their log home on the Clark Fork River. But the nearest hospice organization, in Red Lodge, Mont., isn’t licensed to care for patients in Wyoming. (Span, 4/8)
