
Life expectancy for American men drops for a third year - hhs
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/life-expectancy-for-american-men-drops-for-a-third-year/
======
messo
This drop is largely caused by deaths of despair [1], partly related to a lack
of affordable health care in the US. The fact that (at least [2]) 78% of
Americans live from paycheck to paycheck [3] underscores the relative poverty
many people experience in daily life. I think it is fair to say that a
majority of Americans live with a scarcity mindset, likely affecting mental
health negatively.

EDIT: As a Norwegian following American politics, I am surprised that this
topic is so rarely talked about by the democratic nominees. The only candidate
I have seen talking about the causes of the drop in life expectancy is Andrew
Yang. Not even Pete has worked this into his talking points as far as I have
seen.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diseases_of_despair](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diseases_of_despair)

[2] The number is increasing fast; it was 75% in 2016 and rose to 78% in 2017.

[3] [http://press.careerbuilder.com/2017-08-24-Living-Paycheck-
to...](http://press.careerbuilder.com/2017-08-24-Living-Paycheck-to-Paycheck-
is-a-Way-of-Life-for-Majority-of-U-S-Workers-According-to-New-CareerBuilder-
Survey)

~~~
8456523
>This drop is largely caused by deaths of despair, partly related to a lack of
affordable health care in the US

I'm curious whether you believe lack of affordable health care in the US
_causes_ a lot of death from diseases of despair; and if so, why you believe
that.

I always thought that health care is relatively ineffective at preventing
death from those diseases -- addiction in particular, but also suicide. In
other words, I always thought that the solution to this particular epidemic
will require more than just allocating more money to health care.

Also I always thought that most of those dying from diseases of despair do not
suffer from other chronic illness, e.g., diabetes, that health care is
effective at treating. And I always thought that among those Americans without
a pressing current need for health care, simply not having access to good
affordable health care, although bad, is not bad enough on its own to drive a
significant fraction to suicide or substance abuse. In other words, I always
thought that the despair has another source, e.g., a lack of friends or a lack
of feeling integrated into a community.

~~~
ragequitta
Mental health is health care too.

~~~
snagglegaggle
This is true but mental healthcare can not solve systemic issues that
contribute to isolation like a lack of social opportunities or sexual
partners. These things can be entirely related to economic factors that a
healthcare professional can't address.

------
digitalsushi
A lot of people are having a difficult time. I don't pretend to know anything
about psychology or depression, but I do know that between the elbow of
exponential growth in all things good and bad, and our increasing awareness of
it, that it's good to reach out to friends and read between lines, and ask if
we're all ok. Sometimes flipping a stone over to check in can really make a
huge impact in someone's life, even just a random coffee that wasn't normally
meant to be.

~~~
tomp
> it's good to reach out to friends and read between lines, and ask if we're
> all ok

Will this actually reach the people that need it? I mean, just having
_friends_ (and/or people you're regularly in contact with) is probably quite
helpful in preventing these situations from arising... I imagine the path
towards suicide / serious life & mental health issues is quite gradual, rather
than a cliff... so people would become negative, unpleasant to be around
(hence lose their friends) _way_ before coming anywhere near suicide... by
then it's already too late.

I often think, in terms of my life (highly privileged, smart & well educated,
upper class, rich or at least high-earning, programmer, young, healthy, lots
of career options, career resistant to automation, first-world citizen so easy
to migrate, ...) I'm really quite isolated from "normal", "average" people...
I don't actually even _know_ anyone who's poor, or not in a _career_ (i.e.
just has a dead-end job like a bartender or truck driver)... just by virtue of
the education system, I've been kept away from people like that since I was
15! How am I to even _imagine_ what they're going through?! Sure not
everything is rosy in my life, and even rich people can get sick and
depressed, but I sometimes consider this viewpoint for some perspective...

~~~
zarkov99
I salute you for having the humbleness to see it. There is horrific pain and
suffering out there, one has only to hang out a bit with people outside the
tech bubble to see it. Talk to your mechanic, the waiter, the landscape guy,
the aging bro at the gym, the broken vet. There but for the grace of god is
any one of us. It is unspeakably shameful that we dismiss their suffering
because of their supposed male white privilege. As if that made them less
worthy of empathy and respect.

------
ErikAugust
"Men who are among the richest 1% of Americans live almost 15 years longer
than those who are in the poorest 1%, the Harvard analysis found."

15 years is a tremendous gap!

~~~
patentatt
The poorest 1% is an extreme outlier cohort in America. Some sources from a
cursory search suggest it’s something like less than $2 a day.

~~~
ErikAugust
Yes it would be interesting to see if it extends to poorest 5% at least.

However I would assume the poorest 1% would be covered by social security.

~~~
dredmorbius
Covered by != having effective access to.

The first is a legal and regulatory status. The second requires knowledge of,
access to, capability of negotiating system(s), having a sufficiently fixed
address, documentation, and numerous other factors.

------
rpmisms
Men are risk-takers by nature. When we feel lost, we take risks, for better or
for worse That's why the military still has great recruitment rates. It's also
why many of the self-made wealthy are men, and the ones who aren't are often
people more like JK Rowling.

Looks like fewer of those risks are paying off than usual.

~~~
GaryNumanVevo
This vague generalization of men is exactly the issue. "Why haven't you gotten
a job yet, you should be a risk-taker". Men aren't a monolith, and this exact
thinking boxes people in.

~~~
jhanschoo
I won't be so quick to say that the kind of overgeneralization the comment
you're replying to is guilty of is clearly a factor in this issue, but it does
indeed undermine their point and "explanation".

------
swebs
Some advice I've found helpful is to quit Twitter and Reddit, while also
unfriending particularly misandrist and racist (yes, anti-white racism is
still racism) Facebook friends. I've found myself a lot happier when I cut out
people who would constantly try to demonize me for various physical traits. If
you have the mass media constantly telling a group of people that they're
inherently evil, of course it's going to cause suicides.

~~~
thiago_fm
As if this is the cause of the life expectancy drop for American men. I think
learning how to deal with this type of criticism is a quality one needs to
have nowadays. I'm white and I have no problem with twitter or reddit. They
are actually great platforms.

I think the root of the problem with American men is that inequality in
America is increasing. Also the culture and education system needs a reform, a
lot of kids are growing in an environment where drug abuse is cool, doctors
don't want to hear patients and just prescribe medicine etc.

There are a lot of wrong incentives. Hopefully the next president focuses on
addressing them.

~~~
BlueGh0st
>They are actually great platforms.

With incredibly toxic userbases.

~~~
thiago_fm
I have no problem there, people are very friendly on every reddit sub I enjoy
visiting. The same is for twitter.

What those platforms have in common is choice.

If you are toxic and think it is fine to openly argue and make socially
awkward comments the whole time, then you will view it that way. You will
likely also get attracted by subs and communities that this happens.

~~~
dsfyu404ed
>I have no problem there, people are very friendly on every reddit sub I enjoy
visiting. The same is for twitter.

The only way to have a good time on those platforms and to a lesser (but
increasing, in my unscientific observation) degree, HN is to only express
opinions that toe the party line (party line being relative to whatever the
mainstream opinion is on the platform or subset of it in question). Those
platforms have features designed to amplify consensus and quash dissent.

~~~
AlexTWithBeard
It's good you mentioned HN. I also find it to be an extremely reasonable
forum. Radical opinions pop up every once in a while, but somehow they still
manage to cause little outrage and hatred.

Kudos to the team (and all of us too!)

~~~
non-entity
> Radical opinions pop up every once in a while

Is it just me, or are they becoming more common. I could have sworn when I
browsed HN several years back there was next to non of it, but theres a good
chance I'm just remembering incorrectly

------
kilo_bravo_3
Something has to change, radically, when it comes to mental and medical
healthcare in this country.

I am very, very, fortunate.

In 2018 I was suffering from the effects of PTSD: social isolation, anxiety,
hyper-vigilance, poor physical health, and depression.

Many men are experiencing some of these issues, not brought about by PTSD but
by other factors and they turn to drugs and alcohol to cope.

Luckily, instead of coping with PTSD brought about by deployments to Iraq and
Afghanistan through drugs and alcohol I turned to food and extreme isolation.

But I make money. Lots of it. I also have persuasive parents, and a great job
with awesome co-workers who spurred me into action.

With my money I hired a registered dietician, therapist, and a personal yoga
instructor, and have completely changed the trajectory of my life. I meditate
daily, go to yoga six days a week, have lost 50 lbs (22.7 kg) in eight months.
I have had more, positive, social interactions in the last year than I have
had in the last 10. My daughters say I am a completely different person, and I
feel healthier at 40 than I did at 20.

I am tapering off the industrial quantities of anti-depressants I was on, and
no longer eat anything that came off an assembly line.

There are very few social problems that lead to shortened life expectancy that
cannot be overcome.

And while "diet and exercise" seems to be met with derision on HN, it's not
just about that. It is about the mindfulness and care one puts into themselves
when dieting and exercising. The slow changes that are barely noticed from
day-to-day but hit you like waves, like when I was brushing my teeth and some
toothpaste fell from my mouth and instead of landing on my belly, it landed on
my feet. Or when you struggle for months with sitting still and focusing on
your breathing while meditating and then one day your timer goes off and you
are amazed because it feels like you just started your timer two or three
breaths ago.

It is unacceptable to me that just because I used the GI Bill to get a degree
in Computer Science and now make lots of money that I can save myself from a
downward spiral of isolation and addiction (to food), while most other men
cannot.

Because of my limited ability to effect change, the only thing I can propose
is that we collectively throw the stigma associated with depression and
isolation in the trash and look out for each other as best as possible,
talking openly and candidly about those things and trying to support each
other with low-cost evidence-based self-improvement methods like diet,
exercise, and positive social interactions until access to the same resources
I used to save myself of are attainable by everyone.

------
rhegart
Society doesn’t care about men’s issues. 57% of undergraduates are now women
yet every resource makes it seem like men are way ahead and tries to bring
them down because.001% most powerful are mostly men. It’s okay to mock men
constantly and anyone responding back gets demonized.

~~~
matthewdgreen
"Society doesn’t care about men’s issues."

Please. My wife recently had some health issues due to a condition that
primarily affects women, and I went with her to her medical appointments. The
level of casual dismissal I saw regarding pain and symptoms from numerous
(male and female) doctors was absolutely shocking. While I've certainly had
doctors fail to resolve a medical condition before, nothing like the lack of
respect I saw had ever accompanied my interactions at a doctor's office. If
you genuinely believe that "society doesn't care about men's issues", at least
compared to women's issues, you're living in an absolute fantasy world.

~~~
50656E6973
Your anecdotal dismissal supports the parent commenter's point.

~~~
clmul
It's fairly well-known that there is more medical knowledge about men, and
women are affected in different ways by diseases, about which more knowledge
is needed.

See for example this article:
[https://www.ft.com/content/7864ae80-9597-11e8-95f8-8640db906...](https://www.ft.com/content/7864ae80-9597-11e8-95f8-8640db9060a7)

~~~
50656E6973
Indeed. And yet life expectancy is still lower for men, and is getting worse.
Can we not talk about that for a moment?

~~~
clmul
Sure we can, but I don't think it's very productive to start arguing that
society doesn't care about men's issues. I don't immediately see what society
has to do with the lower life expectancy:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_expectancy#Sex_difference...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_expectancy#Sex_differences)

~~~
benchaney
> and is getting worse

You missed a pretty important part. I don’t see how that could be the result
of anything other than society?

------
paganel
This starts being pretty similar to what happened in the USSR immediately
after the Perestroika failed, in a span of 10-years (1990-2000) life
expectancy for men fell by 5 years (from 63 to 58).

That was a pretty big societal crisis which among other things helped bring to
power an autocrat like Putin (and especially helped him stay there, as life
expectancy shot up again starting with the early 2000s), I’m wondering when
will the present situation in the States be treated like the real societal
crisis that it represents? In other words, guys like Trump are not merely the
causes for much that goes wrong in the States, they’re merely the effects,
take him down and a new Trump-like character will probably emerge in his
place, unless you fix the problem at its very roots.

~~~
gtirloni
And what's the root cause in case you know it?

~~~
paganel
Increased inequality (both economic and social), crippling debt, horrendous
health system, lack of hope (this one especially stings) etc etc. I personally
am not from the States, I lived and grew up in Eastern Europe back in the
‘90s, and saw the same thing happening here, only that we used cheap alcohol
instead of opioids in order to dig up our own early graves.

