This study was done in 2011. 
Considering how much poverty in America has increased since then, the numbers are surely higher...worse...by now.  - Dot Calm

Death by Poverty?

 
How many U.S. deaths are  caused by poverty, low levels of education and other social factors?

A new study finds that the  numbers are in the same range as deaths from heart attacks and stroke.

How researchers classify and quantify causes of death across a population has evolved in recent decades. In addition to long-recognized physiological causes such as heart attack and cancer, the role of behavioral factors—including smoking, dietary patterns and inactivity—began to be quantified in the 1990s.

More recent research has begun to look at the contribution of social factors to U.S. mortality. In the first comprehensive analysis of such studies, researchers at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health found that poverty, low levels of education, poor social support and other social factors contribute about as many deaths in the U.S. as such familiar causes as heart attacks, strokes and lung cancer.

The full study findings are published online ahead of print in the American Journal of Public Health.

The research team, led by Sandro Galea, MD, DrPH, chair of Epidemiology, estimated the number of U.S. deaths attributable to social factors using a systematic review of the available literature combined with vital statistics data. They conducted a MEDLINE search for all English-language articles published between 1980 and 2007 with estimates of the relation between social factors and adult all-cause mortality. Ultimately they considered 47 studies for meta-analysis.

After calculating for the relative risks of mortality from social factors, researchers obtained prevalence estimates for each social factor using primarily Census Bureau data. Individual social factors included education, poverty, health insurance status, employment status and job stress, social support, racism or discrimination, housing conditions and early childhood stressors. Area-level social factors included area-level poverty, income inequality, deteriorating built environment, racial segregation, crime and violence, social capital and availability of open or green spaces.

The investigators found that approximately 245,000 deaths in the United States in the year 2000 were attributable to low levels of education, 176,000 to racial segregation, 162,000 to low social support, 133,000 to individual-level poverty, 119,000 to income inequality, and 39,000 to area-level poverty.
Overall, 4.5% of U.S. deaths were found to be attributable to poverty—midway between previous estimates of 6% and 2.3%. However the risks associated with both poverty and low education were higher for individuals aged 25 to 64 than for those 65 or older.

“Social causes can be linked to death as readily as can pathophysiological and behavioral causes,” points out Dr. Galea, who is also Gelman Professor of Epidemiology.  For example, the number of deaths the researchers calculated as attributable to low education (245,000) is comparable to the number caused by heart attacks (192,898), which was the leading cause of U.S. deaths in 2000. The number of deaths attributable to racial segregation (176,000) is comparable to the number from cerebrovascular disease (167,661), the third leading cause of death in 2000, and the number attributable to low social support (162,000) compares to deaths from lung cancer (155,521).

“These findings argue for a broader public health conceptualization of the causes of mortality and an expansive policy approach that considers how social factors can be addressed to improve the health of populations,” observed Dr. Galea.

This study was funded by the National Institutes of Health.
June 16, 2011

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Hey, Republicans!

What about all the

UNBORN BABIES

that Bush/Cheney bombed

in Iraq and Afghanistan?

Is it OK when a MAN kills the unborn?

Or when the unborn are "just" Muslims?

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A democrat and a republican were discussing politics.

The republican decried how many babies are killed in abortions.

The democrat replied that there are more lives at stake than just unborn babies--like poor people.

The republican then accused the democrat of dismissing the lives of the unborn without realizing that he'd just dismissed everyone else--the poor, "collateral damage" from wars of empire, etc.

Wanna bet he doesn't realize that some of the lives he just dismissed were unborn, too?

If you want to break the government, stop funding it. If you want to stop funding the government, stop taxing the rich.  --Dot Calm

The pro-tax evasion, pro-deficits party strikes again

byJon Perr

After months of their much-hyped but still unproven charges of partisan skullduggery at the Internal Revenue Service, House Republicans this week took an axe to the IRS budget. The cost of the GOP vendetta is massive. Cutting the agency’s funding for the fifth consecutive year, the House in a 228-to-195 vote slashed the overall IRS budget by 13 percent and its enforcement division by almost a quarter. For his part, Rep. Paul Gosar (R-AZ) boasted about his role in punishing the IRS by reducing its funding to just $9.8 billion in fiscal year 2015, down from $13.4 billion five years earlier:

I am ecstatic that the House of Representatives supported my efforts today to pass a vitally important amendment which will save hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars.

Rep. Gosar may be thrilled, but no one else should be. Like his GOP allies around the country, he has the math exactly backwards. If it became law, the House budgetary temper tantrum wouldn’t just undermine customer service even as the agency has expanded responsibilities under the Affordable Care Act and the Dodd-Frank law. By severely limiting the ability of the IRS to audit, identify and prosecute tax cheats, Republicans will once again cost the United States Treasury billions more in lost revenue. And if you feel like you’ve seen this movie before, that’s because you have. As it turns out, the unified House GOP caucus was only delivering on RNC Chairman Reince Priebus’ April promise that "we're done playing footsie here with the IRS" over its supposed scandals. But the real scandal is that Republicans and their conservative amen corner have for decades been doing something much worse to the IRS, as you can learn on Daily Kos.

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WHY?

Do men have ANY say

regarding abortion? And,

WHY?

Don't women have ANY say

regarding initiating war?

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