Today, The Guardian reported on an analysis of life expectancy by neighborhood in 500 American cities. In that study, Chicago stood out, for all the wrong reasons. The predominantly white, lakeside Streeterville district is a lovely place to live — for a long time, to ninety. A few miles away, in the mostly black, Englewood neighborhood, average life expectancy is just sixty. That thirty year gap is the largest within a single city in the study.
The implication:
“There’s a concept that is increasingly being understood, that your zip code has as much to do with your health as your genetic code,” said Dr Marc Gourevitch, chair of the NYU department and the principal architect of the health dashboard.
“Another way to look at that is that your zip code shouldn’t determine whether you get to see your grandkids. And at some level, that’s how I see and feel about these kinds of data. It’s shocking.”
Among the likely factors accounting for the disparity are the usual suspects: violence, trauma associated with fear of/proximity of violence, environmental and public health deficits, which can in turn feed back into social strife — as the Guardian story notes:
But health inequities also drive violence. Take lead poisoning. For decades, Englewood had one of the highest rates of residential lead contamination in the country. Research has shown that lead poisoning in children is associated with dramatic spikes in impulsiveness and aggression.
The larger interpretation: access to health care is only one piece of the health inequality puzzle. An important one, to be sure, but not the only one, and likely not in itself close to sufficient to deal with something like a full-generation gap in the amount of time each of us can hope to spend on this earth. Addressing poverty, access to city services, open space, good schools, and absolutely clean air and water are all part of the puzzle.
This is, btw, why Elizabeth Warren keeps impressing me so much. Her theory of government is one that encompasses not just a specific program or policy need, but a view of how government can address root causes and broad enabling possibilities. I get some of that of Harris too, and some of the others, including a couple with whom I disagree on the specifics, similarly have an idea of what government is for. Sanders and Biden, not so much.
But back to the matter at hand: poverty kills, early and often. We know (as the Guardian article goes into a bit) at least some of the things that work to defang that toxin. That the GOP doesn’t see the necessity to do that is kin to the same impulse that doesn’t see what’s wrong in refusing soap and toothpaste and minimal care to those it stuffs in the American Gulag. We can do so much better.
Image:Rembrandt Harmensz. van Rijn – Christ with the Sick around Him, Receiving Little Children (The ‘Hundred Guilder Print’), c. 1646-50
Martin
Very tangentially related, I was completely unaware of how much of a role nutrition might play in mental health.
That relationship between poverty and life expectancy also may have consequences if diet is impacting conditions like depression. It used to be that poverty meant it was more likely you were digging your dinner out of your yard, which meant you might be undernourished, but not necessarily poorly nourished. Now it means you’re more likely to be ordering off the dollar menu, which flips that relationship, particularly in food deserts like Englewood.
Litlebritdifrnt
And yet today Mike Pence told Jake Tapper that “America has the best air and water standards in the world” to which Jake said to his credit “that is not true”. Pence then veered off to a different tack but at least someone called him out on his lies.
Elizabelle
@Martin: Good point.
And this is a great topic for discussion. Thanks, Tom.
rikyrah
Good post. Interesting topic.
The truth in black and white?
Another Scott
I’m not at all surprised that it’s easy to make a case like this using Chicago.
Chicago was the most segregated (major?) city in the US when I attended college there 3+ decades ago. One of the things I remembered doing as part of my social science class was walking from LSD west for a couple of miles. It was very, very easy to see the neighborhood boundaries….
I also remember not having bus fare to get home one evening and having to walk from UC back home near Midway Airport and going through neighborhoods that had blocks that had literally been flattened by the poverty. :-(
I haven’t been back in a very long time, but conditions like that don’t change easily, especially when the political power structure in the city is so invested in the status quo.
Thanks.
Cheers,
Scott.
trollhattan
@Litlebritdifrnt:
“I just happen to have Switzerland right here.”
Pence is a moron who happens to lie while looking stern. The GOP paradigm.
ThresherK
@Litlebritdifrnt: There’s been a series of events which caused Jake Tapper corrected Pence in real time. I’m gonna go dwell on that for about a week.
dww44
Although i will support any Dem candidate, even Biden or Sanders, both of them, way past their prime (she’s not), Warren is so much my favorite candidate. Here’s the title of Erick Erickson’s Op-ed in my Sunday paper today. He lives here btw and raises my blood pressure every time I see his face on the almost non-existent editorial page:
“How can we make Republicans explain their policy choices?” subtitled “they need to advocate for liberty and reduce the size and scope of the federal government.” The only other editorial is from the WP’s MarcThiessen titled “Biden’s problem? He doesn’t hate Republicans”. Those are the only 2 political op-eds in today’s McClatchy newspaper where there might be 7 people still left in their employ locally.
Such is the state of local journalism in a majority-minority city where only conservative Republicans count. So, our continuing problem as Democrats is that we don’t have influence over the pathetic editorial pages of the increasingly weak local media even when we represent a signficant portion of the citizenry they serve.
SiubhanDuinne
@Litlebritdifrnt:
Moar, much moar of this, plz.
Aleta
SiubhanDuinne
@Elizabelle:
O/T. Haven’t seen much of you lately. Are you back stateside? Where do you expect to be over the next few months? Would love to catch up/meet up again.
Cheryl Rofer
@Aleta: Wow! Good for Ravelry!
Ruckus
@Martin:
I used to work nights at my company on the edge of south central LA.
There was one “supermarket” location within a couple of miles, in south central. Sometimes we’d got to the store for lunch. Of course that was at 6 or 7 at night. Same chain where I lived would have produce, fresh meats, this one would have almost nothing on the shelves, the produce looked like it was the several day old cast offs from stores like the ones around where I lived, and it would all cost about 20% more. They did have an armed security guard though.
People without jobs or that have shitty paying jobs can’t buy their way out of poverty.
SiubhanDuinne
@Aleta:
Good for them!
sukabi
Marginally off topic…
Folks were asking for info on orgs that are working towards getting help for the migrant children…
and many more at the link
jp
So here’s a question I’ve always had @TomLevenson – my father’s family grew up in extreme poverty (all lived in a one room apt, five kids in a bed, etc., all left school early to earn money, poor nutrition and so on). All eventually went on to have good careers, families, children, owned their own homes, lived in good neighborhoods etc. Yet each one of them died young, in their fifties or sixties (one in her thirties), of cancer and/or heart issues. Is there something that gets messed up genetically either in their own genes, or carried on from their parents’ genes from the stress of a living in extreme poverty?
trollhattan
@Aleta:
First they came for the nazi knitters
And I said nothing….
That’ll get some perls in a twist.
JPL
@Litlebritdifrnt: My gut tells me that trump will drop him from the ticket, and have Nikki Haley instead. He’s losing females and needs to bring them back into the fold. My gut is always wrong though.
MomSense
@Aleta:
I was just going to post that. I spent all day at the beach and just saw it when I came home. The fiber community is all over it.
zhena gogolia
@Aleta:
Good for them. They have joined Penzey’s in the hall of fame.
chris
@JPL: Nah, this is Trump, he knows the women all love him. He’ll go with the gaudy Sheriff Clarke which will take all the POC votes away from Biden.//
gene108
I remember Hillary talking about putting in a federal program to remove lead paint from older homes.
How much worse off we are for electing Republicans.
schrodingers_cat
Both economic hegemony and race have nothing on caste, a system that has kept millions of Indians impoverished and denied them basic human dignity for millennia. Recently, BBC published an excerpt from the book of an Indian academic who blamed the excesses on the caste system on the British. While I am no slouch in holding the colonial masters’ feet to the fire, I found this is a bit rich. . He cannot blame the British for a system that has been in existence 1000 years before the first Muslim conquerors came to India.
@JPL: I think NH is too smart to accept that proposal.
Another Scott
@Aleta:
Hehe. :-)
Cheers,
Scott.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Aleta: The kitty-cat hat makers strike again!
eclare
@Aleta: Also Vogue refuses to have Melanie on the cover. Michelle was on three times.
Amir Khalid
@JPL:
Now that she’s come up in the conversation, where has Nikki Haley been of late?
JPL
@Amir Khalid: With Ivanka. hmmm
Dorothy A. Winsor
@eclare: Social shunning is a good weapon. Good for Vogue and good for the fiber community.
ETA: Earlier today, I saw some comments on the fiber community thread from shocked and outraged Trump supporters. IMHO, it’s good for them to hear how most people think of Trump. Their FOX bubble won’t tell them, and the rest of us have been too polite. Not that the fiber people are being rude. They’re just setting firm boundaries for what’s acceptable.
Another Scott
LOLGOP says it’s dangerous to believe Donnie is an assclown:
Good points. It’s a good read.
We have to fight as hard as we can because so much is stacked against us. Nothing is inevitable.
But, I still think Donnie is brain damaged… ;-)
(via his Twitter feed)
Cheers,
Scott.
Luthe
On the subject of environmental justice, have you seen this absolutely terrifying Twitter thread about the refinery explosion in Philly and how it could have been another Bhopal? Everyone in South Philly was apparently very, very lucky.
germy
J R in WV
Good for all the knitters!! And we knew Teen Vogue was killing the political coverage since before the election of 2016… now Vogue is joining them in the real world.
@schrodingers_cat:
You really thing Nikki Haley is too smart to accept the V-P nomination? ‘Cause I don’t…
Dorothy A. Winsor
@J R in WV: I love the idea of Trump dumping Pence though. It serves Pence right and could stir up the Evangelicals.
FlyingToaster
@jp:
It’s not genetic.
Stress on an organism from early in its lifespan decreases life expectancy. Fruit Flies, Mice, or Humans, it’s the same problem.
Big stressors on children are environmental: food insecurity, toxins exposure (e.g., lead), lack of regular medical/dental care, lack of early intervention when there’s a health problem.
One of the big effects in Massachusetts from Romneycare (2006) was that among the normal but poor folks (we’re counting Anti-Vaxxers as subnormal), their kids started missing less school. Kids got their well-child visits and their vaccinations because those were now free (well, included in coverage). That brought the issues of food insecurity to the fore; kids who were on free breakfast/lunch at school were still showing lower achievement rates, even with improved attendance, so teachers asked, “what are you eating at night? what are you eating on weekends?” This sparked the “backpack of food” movements to make sure these kids get fed more than just M-F, breakfast and lunch. Which means their life expectancies should rise somewhat.
Incremental progress does work. Solve one problem, see which one pops up as next most urgent, start working on that.
Jay
@jp:
Food, stress, chemicals, toxins all have a huge effect on children.
Eg, allowable chemical exposure is usually rated as the chemical being a poison. A huge array of chemicals however are hormone mimics or site blockers. Their presence during cell development either causes issues by acting as a hormone mimic, or by acting as a blocker, preventing human hormones from attaching to the site.
Needless to say, “proving” that your cancer was caused by living in a chemical ghetto as a child, is impossible to “prove” and Industry spends billions a year to “prove” there is no such thing as chemical ghetto’s,
No matter what medical stats say about living in Sarnia vs. Toronto.
schrodingers_cat
@Another Scott: No nothing is inevitable. T is not ten feet tall and he can be beaten
Another Scott
@Dorothy A. Winsor: In 2016 TheFix at WP thought Donnie was going to pick Leroy. Heh.
The article is pretty good about going through the personalities though; most of them haven’t changed that much.
Cheers,
Scott.
Steve in the ATL
@schrodingers_cat: he’d have to be ten feet tall not to be obese at his weight!
FlyingToaster
@J R in WV:
I think that, like Snowmobile Snookie, Haley lacks both a national presence and a constituency that would help Trump. He might ask her, but she should be able to connect the dots (I’m assuming professional politician here) to realize that he’ll just abuse her the same way he abuses Pence. Plus white nationalists (Trump’s own constituency) won’t be happy.
Pence at least does bring a constituency (Franklin Graham and the evangelical right).
Plato
Private immigration detention??? WTF?
Adam L Silverman
In the early 1940s, two members of the Chicago School of Criminology, conducted their neighborhood studies into crime, deviance, and delinquency. These were some of the earliest comprehensive human geographic and social geographic studies of the behavior. It would go on to produce both social disorganization theory, as well as Sutherland’s differential social organization theory, which is part of the larger corpus of criminological social learning theory that he helped produce.
schrodingers_cat
@Steve in the ATL: Just imagine how long his tie would be in that case.
Ruckus
@Another Scott:
I think if you took all the best of each one you still couldn’t assemble a realistic human being.
Jay
@Plato:
For profit detention,
Selling off the seperated children,
It’s been the Dollhands Donnie/ICE Nazi m/o since day 1.
Adam L Silverman
@JPL: @schrodingers_cat: @Dorothy A. Winsor: @FlyingToaster: RUMINT is he’s considering Lindsey Graham to shake things up as if it was a television show casting decision for a sequel.
Adam L Silverman
@Plato: The private prison industry, aided by AG Sessions lifting the regulation prohibiting the use of them for Federal inmates and prisoners put in place during the Obama administration, quickly starting making contract proposals that they could solve the undocumented immigrant in detention space crisis.
Hkedi [Kang T. Q.]
@jp: Hello JP! The particular field you are looking for to the answer for your question is called epigenetics, where stresses to an organism can cause changes to the regulation of DNA that can , in some cases, be inherited by children (look up Transgenerational epigenetic inheritance). It has been shown that socioeconomic status shows measurable and widespread epigenetic changes ( https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/04/190404135433.htm).
Now for a bunch of scientific caveats. This is still a very new field, and there are a lot of unknowns. It is unknown what portion of these changes are passed down and how long. Effects have been measured at statistical levels, but a lot of this comes down to gene regulation, which although is a very hot topic in biology, is still poorly understood at the level of a whole organism.
So, your feelings are plausible, and there is real research to back up the mechanism, but currently the state of the art is in no way able to give you a firm answer.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@germy: Trump wants princess Ivanka to run, keep it in the family.
Ruckus
@FlyingToaster:
It’s not genetic except that a person who grows up that way can be genetically damaged by the effects of poverty and pass on those defects. So generations of poverty can have genetic issues. The overwhelming issue is the poverty upon the individual involved though, as you say, as getting out of poverty is the best way to avoid all the issues of it.
HeleninEire
So regretting (a bit) returning. I need to be here now. My Dad (84) has been brought to the ER 3 times since I’ve been back. So I am glad I’m here. But boy oh boy I miss my Dublin friends. And I’m not in the position to say “But when he passes.” Because what about Mary?
Anyway I’ve planned a birthday trip back in. September.
Jay
@Ruckus:
For the next generation,
Maybe,
Quite often you pass your “damaged” genes on.
Jay
@HeleninEire:
{{{{{ Helen and her Da}}}}}
FlyingToaster
@Ruckus: As @Hkedi [Kang T. Q.] notes, there are epigenetic changes that can happen (chemical exposures seem to be big in turning on/off gene expression), but the individual stress on an organism is no joke.
For instance: my PCP ran the numbers on the causes of death of my dad, grandparents and great grand-parents. For individuals who did not smoke, they all died of cardiovascular and cerebrovascular incidents in their 80s. Smokers died younger of smoking-related diseases. So, since I don’t smoke, the thing that I have that’s most likely to kill me is high blood pressure. Keeping my BP under control will keep me in good health to my 80s, and probably keep me alive into my 90s.
There’s a lot of work going on trying to map which things are epigenetic and therefore inheritable, but it’s ‘way early days on that science.
trollhattan
@Amir Khalid:
There’s a plan. Goes something like this, I suppose.
1. Take Trump admin job, don’t act (well, at least not too much) like a Trumper.
2. Resign to spend time with…whomever still lives in the townhouse.
3. Wait for Trump to implode, plus an additional six months.
4. Pop up as the Repbulican’s Great
WhiteOffwhite Female Hope.5. Troll for more Kathleen Parker endorsements.
As a journo you’ll really appreciate how very deeply she buried the lede.
Helen O'Neill
@Jay: Thank you.
eclare
@HeleninEire: Sorry to hear about your dad, that’s rough.
Gvg
@Dorothy A. Winsor: if he did, he would offend the evangelicals and I am sure he would be extremely rude and dismissive of her repeatedly, on camera, because he is a sexist as completely as he is racist. He might think such a move would help him, but he would screw it up.
He does still act like he is living a TV show so he might consider new casting, however I don’t think it would help. Haley has dropped out of sight. I wonder if he insulted or bullied her before? Or other white supremists in this administration? For a long time republicans have been dog whistling racists, but Trump is way beyond them. She may have realized the dangers to herself.
Dan B
@Luthe: OMG!!! Hydrofluoric acid at the Philadelphia refinery explosion. This is the most reactive acid – the most. It will dissolve glass! I believe it can pass through most plastics as well. The fact that Sunoco teamed up with Cargyle is equally horrifying. They have less morality than zero.
Bhopal is an apt comparison. They know an accident could kill tens of thousands and permanently sicken more.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@HeleninEire: That’s tough. I remember what it was like with my own parents. The trouble is it’s one of those things you only know how to deal with after you’ve done it, and by then, it’s late in the day.
Jay
@Luthe:
@Dan B:
Yup, posted Gwen a couple of days ago pointing out Philly Jackals needed to shelter in place, keep windows closed and stay indoors for at least 3 days.
jp
@Hkedi [Kang T. Q.]: thanks! This is really interesting and thanks for the link!
Ruckus
@FlyingToaster:
Small genetic changes can be, will be passed down. They may make no noticeable difference in one generation – any changes will be so small as to be within standard deviation. But over generations, those changes can add up. The effects of poor nutrition, poor or no healthcare will likely be far worse but long term those effects add up as well.
One thing we are seeing now is in the overall population is that we are living longer and a lot of that is from less poverty, less environmental toxins and better healthcare. Over all these have moved the needle in the direction of longer and better living. At least for the people that are not living in poverty.
Ruckus
@HeleninEire:
Sorry about your dad.
Shoulders offered.
Many of us have been there and it is one of those things that tells you, being an adult isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. Maybe, hopefully we can help some if you need any.
PST
I don’t doubt the general premise of the Guardian story, but using Streeterville as an example is silly. No one grows up there. It’s crawling with people who only arrived after they were old and rich. The average resident is probably 60 already.
Helen O'Neill
@Ruckus: Thank you. I am Ok now.
SiubhanDuinne
@HeleninEire:
Oh, Helen, I’m sorry about your dad. And I can just imagine how concerned you must be about Mary. Hugs to you and yours. Strength.
Feathers
@jp: People have mentioned epigenetics earlier in the thread, so the answer is yes. There have been studies of cohorts of children born during wars, famines or other slow, long disasters and the health consequences can be seen for more than one generation.
If you want a fantastic overview of the current state of knowledge on health and poverty, David Williams of the Harvard School of Public Health did a great talk at MIT a few years back, which is available to watch: Social Influences on Health: Addressing both Risks and Resources. He does talk about potential solutions, so know that is coming when the data gets bleak.
Jay
https://pressprogress.ca/wealthy-directors-at-canadas-biggest-corporations-are-burnt-out-working-7-hours-per-week-report/
MomSense
@HeleninEire:
I’m sorry about your dad and your dilemma. You miss Dublin and yet you wouldn’t feel right being away from your dad now.
SiubhanDuinne
@germy:
Don’t even know about 2024, but I caught a short clip of Trump’s Orlando reëlection kickoff the other night and noticed that none of the signs mentioned Pence. They were all just “TRUMP 2020” but no suggestion on a ticket.
On MTP today he told Chuck Todd that he is 100% for Pence on the ticket in 2020. Since he lies about everything, I can only assume that means he he plans very soon to dump Pence in the most humiliating way possible.
Ruckus
@FlyingToaster:
High blood pressure is the silent killer. And without healthcare you have little way to deal with it. Poverty cranks that dial up to 11. Every healthcare appointment I’ve had in in the last 30 yrs started with BP monitoring. Once had a cardio do BP on all 4 limbs. And like probably most everyone on BJ over 60-65 I take BP meds. They do a pretty good job, but not enough. One has to stay reasonably active to keep it in a reasonable range. Age does a number of things that jack up the BP. And keeping it down, even better than the meds is a requirement to getting a lot older. A few will do that naturally. Most will require that extra mile.
Feathers
@Jay: Well, to be honest, I do understand. I’ve worked for people who were on boards. If you are on one board, you probably are on several. And if you are someone who is asked to be on a board, you are probably already in a more that full time job. So adding 5-7 hours a week for the 3-4 boards you are on, on top of your 50 hour a week regular job is probably an issue.
Am I laughing? And giving less than a shit? Yup.
Suzanne
@FlyingToaster: There’s some evidence that trauma can have epigenetic effects on subsequent generations. Too early to absolutely determine a causal link, but not a crazy thought either.
Suzanne
@Suzanne: Shit, this is what happens when I reply to a comment without finishing the entire thread.
Anyway, it is not unreasonable to think that extreme poverty had some long-term health effects on those who suffered and their descendants, although it is impossible to measure.
plato
Bigot rubes are always easy marks everywhere.
Half a million to “fund” a multi millionaire’s bigotry. Fucking dunces.
Ohio Mom
@Suzanne: What’s tne news re: Spawn #3?
Suzanne
@Ohio Mom: Induction scheduled for tomorrow night starting at 9pm.
So I got a blowout and a mani/pedi this weekend.
polyorchnid octopunch
@HeleninEire: All my best to you and your family.
Suzanne
@HeleninEire: Hugs. That must be so hard. I’m glad you have a trip scheduled….it’s so important to have something to look forward to.
Omnes Omnibus
@HeleninEire: Hey, you may want to ask a FPer to fix your ‘nyms.
Aleta
@Suzanne: wow. Will be thinking of you, starting now. All the best.
tobie
I get that same commitment from a number of candidates in the race. Beto and Booker are in my top group for this reason, as are Warren and Harris. I rank Beto higher because immigration is a big issue for me and I don’t see Warren, Booker or Harris addressing it in the same way and for as long. (I recently came across this C-Span video from 2014 which shows how long Beto’s been opposing family detentions.) I also find his policy proposals to be exceptionally well-crafted…but as many have said we have a feast of riches this cycle, and we’ve got to keep our eye on the prize, which is kicking Trump and McConnell to the curb.