Reward-and-punish mentality unworthy of democracy
Last week, I wrote about a discouraging study led by Raj Chetty about the association between income and life expectancy in America. The study finds that from 2001 to 2014, “among the population in the bottom income quartile, the shortest life expectancy was found in Oklahoma and in cities in the rust belt, such as Gary, Indiana, and Toledo, Ohio.”
The New York Times coverage of the high-profile study adds, “places where poor citizens had long life spans also tended to have a high concentration of college graduates and high local government spending.” Also, some find an optimistic message in the study because it shows that “the right mix of steps to improve habits and public health could help people live longer, regardless of how much money they make.” Sure enough, the JAMA study recommends that health professionals “make targeted efforts to improve health among low-income populations in cities, such as Las Vegas, Nevada; Tulsa, Oklahoma; and Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.”
I was thrilled that my mentor, Sandy Ingraham, sent me much more hopeful research on improved health outcomes across America for poor young people. Ingraham has a long career dedicated to improving the lives of children, and she was inducted into theOklahoma Women’s Hall of Fame. She sent me a study published in Science that shows targeted health programs are reducing mortality rates for teens and young adults.
The study’s co-lead authors, Janet Currie and Hannes Schwandt, find that death rates for all children declined and “the improvement was much more pronounced in the poorest counties.” Some excerpts of note:
It’s an important message, opposing the popular narrative of “Everything is getting worse.” It tells people that their tax money is not wasted. Going forward, we need to find out which policies were most effective and how to scale them up in order to maximize their positive impact on the lives of the poor.It is important to emphasize that our results for middle and older ages are entirely consistent with those of previous studies such as … Chetty et al. … What is new here and more hopeful is the investigation of what is happening to death rates at younger ages.
The tragic decrease in life expectancy for poor undereducated middle-aged Americans in Reward-and-punish mentality unworthy of democracy - NonDoc: