US life expectancy in 2000 was 77.1 years (obviously averaged for gender differences, but I wanted a fairly simple figure). We often see figures on life expectancy used in debates over health care, pointing out that the US has a fairly low life expectancy as far as industrialized nations go.
But what that leaves out is the wide regional variety in life expectancy across our nation.
Strange Maps (remember their map of state GDPs equated to foreign countries?) also has a map that equates the life expectancy in each state of the union with that of its nearest analog abroad.
All of you who are aficionados of Michael Moore's Sicko (and if you are, what are you doing here, anyway? gathering ammunition?) will recall that the fat boy grew positively rhapsodic about the better health care to be found in Cuba.
Which is a good thing for those of us who live in Delaware, I guess, since our life expectancy most closely equates with Castro's workers' paradise. The BAD NEWS is that Cuba and Delaware share a life expectancy of 76.2 years, almost a full year less than the US average.
It is good, apparently, to live in Minnesota, which shares with Australia a life expectancy of 79.8 years (the cold must freeze out the aging process), and not so good at all to live in Washington DC (which, like Lithuania, forecasts death at only 69.1 years).
Overall good news: no state got anywhere close to comparing to failed states in Africa, although the North Carolina-Czech Republic (74.5 years) and the South Carolina-Qatar (72.4 years) correlations should not be comforting to the citizens on either side of South of the Border.
Overall bad news: no State approached the 80.7 years of Japan, and certainly not the 83.5 years of Andorra. But on the other hand, I'll bet you couldn't find 83.5 people in the US who could locate Andorra in the first place. (Although now you can.)
Overall weird news: Missouri is not only the geographic population center of the country, it's also dead on the national average (OK, maybe "dead on" was infelicitous phrasing).
The map is below; click on it for a larger version; go here for an easily accessible life expectancy chart.
But what that leaves out is the wide regional variety in life expectancy across our nation.
Strange Maps (remember their map of state GDPs equated to foreign countries?) also has a map that equates the life expectancy in each state of the union with that of its nearest analog abroad.
All of you who are aficionados of Michael Moore's Sicko (and if you are, what are you doing here, anyway? gathering ammunition?) will recall that the fat boy grew positively rhapsodic about the better health care to be found in Cuba.
Which is a good thing for those of us who live in Delaware, I guess, since our life expectancy most closely equates with Castro's workers' paradise. The BAD NEWS is that Cuba and Delaware share a life expectancy of 76.2 years, almost a full year less than the US average.
It is good, apparently, to live in Minnesota, which shares with Australia a life expectancy of 79.8 years (the cold must freeze out the aging process), and not so good at all to live in Washington DC (which, like Lithuania, forecasts death at only 69.1 years).
Overall good news: no state got anywhere close to comparing to failed states in Africa, although the North Carolina-Czech Republic (74.5 years) and the South Carolina-Qatar (72.4 years) correlations should not be comforting to the citizens on either side of South of the Border.
Overall bad news: no State approached the 80.7 years of Japan, and certainly not the 83.5 years of Andorra. But on the other hand, I'll bet you couldn't find 83.5 people in the US who could locate Andorra in the first place. (Although now you can.)
Overall weird news: Missouri is not only the geographic population center of the country, it's also dead on the national average (OK, maybe "dead on" was infelicitous phrasing).
The map is below; click on it for a larger version; go here for an easily accessible life expectancy chart.
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