Posted on 06/14/2012 1:08:31 AM PDT by Tolerance Sucks Rocks
While life expectancy in many parts of the United States is dropping, it has increased by 10 years in Manhattan since 1987. Researchers largely attribute that rise the fastest in the nation to a crackdown by the New York City health department on unhealthy behaviors.
Manhattanites can now expect to live to the ripe old age of 82, and the average life expectancy across all five New York City boroughs is 80.6 years. That's three years beyond the national average, and a striking turnaround since the city's low point in 1990, when life expectancy there trailed the U.S. average by three years.
The numbers come from researchers at the University of Washington's Institute for Heath Metrics and Evaluation, who recently estimated the life expectancies in all 3,147 independent American cities and counties each year from 1987 through 2009. Even with New York's success, the IHME team found life expectancy in the country as a whole lengthened just 1.7 years per decade, a slower pace of progress than in the world's most long-lived countries. (The United States ranks 50th in that regard, according to the CIA World Fact Book.)
So, why is New York doing so well, and how can other U.S. cities get their residents' longevities up to speed? [Infographic: A Day in the Life of the Average American]
According to the British medical journal The Lancet, most gains made during the 1990s aren't replicable elsewhere. The city ramped up its life expectancy by reining in homicide rates and HIV/AIDS-related mortality, both of which had weighed down the average at the beginning of the decade.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
Nanny State PING!
That’s not living.
I’m surprised that the author wasn’t Mike Bloomberg.
No, no, NO. It’s not Bloombird’s “health” measures.
First of all, a lot of old people come here or stay here, because it’s easy to have a life without a car, and there are LOTS of services and discounts. Easier to live here independently and alone than it is other places.
Second, we have the BEST doctors and hospitals in the world.
Do they really live longer or does it just seem so?
As long as you don’t ride the subway after 6pm, youre probably correct.
Conveniently timed info.
Aren't the elderly easy prey for the thug element that grip New York? Mass transit is a breeding ground for that type as witnessed by Bernard Goetz who was accosted by what we now euphemistically call the "Amish". I'm old (just shy of 70) and I wouldn't visit much less live in New York City because of the criminals and the leftists (but I repeat myself) swarming over the Five Boroughs, maybe not as much in Staten Island.
When your population aborts or doesn't bother to have children, the mean, median, and average age of death of your population will rise. It doesn't mean your people are living longer. It means your culture is dying.
God once put this curse on a people. New Yorkers? They're more sophisticated than that. They're imposing it on themselves.
The longer we live, the more we cost. So the nanny state costs taxpayers more than they would otherwise have to shell out. Cheaper to let us buy large soft drinks and eat salt!
>>>Researchers largely attribute that rise the fastest in the nation to a crackdown by the New York City health department on unhealthy behaviors.... The city ramped up its life expectancy by reining in homicide rates and HIV/AIDS-related mortality, both of which had weighed down the average at the beginning of the decade.<<<
Isn’t it cool the way that the writer can’t even maintain his premise for four paragraphs?
Since life expectancy is an average, something that has helped (since the time of Giuliani ) is good policing, which means that NYC has a lower murder rate, even among young thugs, than other cities.
This article is just illogical.
the old New Yorkers I know, and knew, soem of who live to about 100, grew up without health insurance, Social Security and other govt. handouts. They had a retirement and widowhood fund.
They watched what they ate, didn’t over drink or smoke.
They supported their local doctor who took care of them, not thriving on their illnesses. One aunt told me they bought the doctor a car every few years, as needed.
There is absolutely no way they were told how to eat by anyone but a caring family member or friend, ever.
Never mind the other stupid statements in this “article”.
My great grandmother, who lived in the Bronx until the age of 82 did not cost taxpayers any more money than anyone else did. She and her family paid their own and each others’ med expenses.
They hated the idea of govt. handouts, citing FDR as a destroyer.
they saw ahead to this mess. They took care of themselves the best they could, not wanting to be a burden on the family.
Now there is no shame in not taking care of oneself, the gevt. wants to do it, but now the govt doesn’t know how to take on the role of preventive care taker.
Bloomberg is trying to attract people to the City who will give him money to take care of the takers. This is lame and ineffective.
If so, the longevity in New York comes at a serious decrease in the quality of life.
If so, the longevity in New York comes at a serious decrease in the quality of life.
If so, the longevity in New York comes at a serious decrease in the quality of life.
People in NYC walk a lot and because they aren’t driving cars much, there aren’t many deaths by car accident. They have a large Hispanic population and for some reason Hispanic immigrants (self-selected, happy optimists?) live longer nationwide.
That Bloomberg’s bike lanes have helped is a laughable prospect and it seems awfully quick for his smoking ban to make a measurable difference.
Between Manhattan and the boroughs, there’s a higher incident of skinny, highly educated white people in the former and fatter, less educated black people in the latter.
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