More on health and poverty (and geography)

Following up on Brian's illuminating post earlier this week about the widening gap in life expectancy between the rich and the poor, two other articles discussing health and the economic divide are worth a read.

First, the New York Times, drawing on the same research that Brian flagged, concludes: "The Rich Live Longer Everywhere. For the Poor, Geography Matters." Read details on the dynamics of that difference, including an interactive map, here.

Second, the Washington Post explains how the death rate for rural white women has surprisingly spiked, or as the Post puts it, an "urban-rural mortality gap emerges among whites as risky behaviors work to defy modern trends." What risky behaviors? "[W]hite women . . . are far more likely than their grandmothers to be smokers, suffer from obesity or drink themselves to death." Read that story here.

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