I would be curious to see more recent data, but this was from a Scientific American article pre-COVID.

Posted by Goodginger

36 comments

  1. Obesity, lack of health care, lack of education, and then, eventually, lack of vaccination.

  2. Is this surprising? The average age of Hawaii residents is 8 years longer than Mississippi or West Virginia residents. 

  3. Mistrust of the medical establishment and fewer healthcare resources in Republican-dominated rural areas

  5. People used to know how dumb they were and actually listen to advice and fall in line. Now everyone has access to infinite validation on the internet and think they know everything and listen to nobody.

  6. Republicans represent a lot of poor and uneducated people looking to blame someone other than the wealthy and powerful interests that dictate their entire party’s platform.

  7. So many reasons. Poor diet. Bad to no health care. Misinformation about covid, etc.

  8. That graph is pretty self explanatory. The red line is flat since around 2010 and the blue line keeps dropping.

    That would suggest that people on the blue line are taking advantage of new scientific advances and red people aren’t.

  9. This is the kind of thing thats hard to *scientifically* pinpoint but, like, we all know why

  11. So I recently asked my doctor for a prescription to get the newly restricted COVID vaccine. I figured the idiots in the health department had made this mandatory. I found out that NYS does not restrict the COVID vaccine and I can just go get it at the local pharmacy. Maybe sensible decisions help people in blue states live longer?

  13. Effective public health interventions are usually practical, boots on the ground stuff, not necessarily new innovations- accessible clinics, affordable preventative care, pollution control, access to nutritious food and safe housing, addiction treatment, road and pedestrian safety, that kinda thing. It’s done by infrastructure and social programs which need government investment. Republicans tend to cut those investments. 

  14. Red states have:

    – Less and often worse education (creationism in science classes, abstinence only sex ed)

    – More guns

    – higher obesity rates

    – less access and to worse Healthcare (such as rural communities having fewer hospitals, and smaller hospitals that have to transfer patients elsewhere for procedures when they lack equipment)

    – distrust of medical science leading to lower vaccination rates, fewer checkups, less pediatric involvement, and inappropriate/harmful experimental home treatments

    – more privatized/less regulated industries and thus worse infrastructure leading to poorer air, soil, and water qualities

    – more likely to legalize and participate in inbreeding (first cousin marriages)

    – lower rates of post secondary education

    – low media literacy, low media access

  15. Red counties tend to be rural. Blue counties tend to be urban.

    I wonder how this would chart against a metric like average distance from a hospital, or more specifically, from a stroke center or trauma center.

  16. A people who reject scientific advancement are going to miss the prosperity it brings.

  17. I suspect the mortality gap grew even bigger during the COVID-19 pandemic when Republicans disproportionately eschewed the vaccines.

  18. Literally the line below the title answers your question

  19. >During this third wave – which continued into early 2021 – the coronavirus death rate among the 20% of Americans living in counties that supported Trump by the highest margins in 2020 was about 170% of the death rate among the one-in-five Americans living in counties that supported Biden by the largest margins.

    [https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2022/03/03/the-changing-political-geography-of-covid-19-over-the-last-two-years/](https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2022/03/03/the-changing-political-geography-of-covid-19-over-the-last-two-years/)

    I read a study (trying to remember where) and the epidemiologists were shocked that literal politics alone (not the usual socioeconomic / gender / racial / region gaps) were the biggest predictor of the COVID death rate.

  20. Republicans think that if they eat a salad someone will call them gay. And then they have to suck a dick. That’s the rules.

  22. Could it be an Urban vs Rural divide? More likely to survive a stroke or heart attack if it happens in the middle of a city where a hospital is minutes away vs a rural town where it could be an hour to the nearest hospital which likely still doesn’t have the cutting edge equipment the city hospital does. 

  23. Scientific advancement is useless if people can’t or won’t use them. I live in an area where one of the growing concerns is pertussis (whooping cough). There has been a vaccine for that since 1912, it’s freely available from health departments, and we have babies dying of it. **FFS**.

  24. That data is 6 years old, and partisanship has increased dramatically in that time. Would love to see more up to date data.

  25. I’m guessing it’s because there’s a growing gap between the rich and poor, and advancements in society are just too expensive for the everyday person.

  28. The obvious explanation here is that Republicans tend to be older so GOP counties have older populations, which tend to die more frequently.

  29. Scientific advancements come earlier to the cities where Democrats tend to reside. It could take another ten years for a midsize county in Montana to have the same hospital tech as a midsize county in California.

  32. Better uptake of Obamacare, Medicare expansion and healthcare safety nets surely plays a big role. Things like obesity would not change this quickly and gun violence does not move the needle visibly on a scale like this.

  34. Some people have $, but many more do not. I think you’ll find a very strong correlation between wealth and health generally speaking.

  35. Greed. It’s a bunch of things but behind all of it is greed.

  36. People are dumb and believe anything Shamusolini tells them.

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