(Roughly) Daily

We tend to encounter data about public health in the form of averages over the population as a whole. But as a recent study published in The Lancet painfully demonstrates, the underlying reality is much more complicated– and alarming…

The differences in U.S. life expectancy are so large it’s as if the population lives in separate Americas instead of one. 

Nearly two decades ago, a team of researchers published the landmark “Eight Americas” study, which examined drivers of U.S. health inequities between 1982 and 2001 by dividing the U.S. population into groups based on geography, race, income, and other factors. 

A new research study, published this month by the University of Washington and the Council on Foreign Relations, revisits that landmark research project, adding two new “Americas” to account for Latino populations. 

This new study finds that U.S. life expectancy disparities have grown over the last two decades between 2001 and 2021, with the differences between the best and worst of those “Americas” increasing from 12.6 years in 2000 to 20.4 years in 2021. COVID-19 exacerbated this divide, but gaps in longevity had already been growing before the pandemic hit…

“The 10 Americas: How Geography, Race, and Income Shape U.S. Life Expectancy,” from @thinkglobalhealth.org. Both this summary article and the underlying paper are eminently worth reading in full.

* Martin Luther King, Jr.

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As we unpack unfairness, we might send preventative birthday greetings to Ernst Wynder; he was born on this date in 1922. An epidemiologist and public health researcher, he is best remembered for his pioneering work in identifying the link (in 1950) between smoking and lung cancer.

Wynder devoted his career to the study and prevention of cancer and chronic disease, publishing hundreds of scientific papers. Through the 1950s and 1960s, he worked at Sloan-Kettering Institute for Cancer Research. In 1969, he founded the American Health Foundation. In 1972, he founded the academic journal Preventive Medicine and served as the founding editor.

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