
List of countries by life expectancy - wslh
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_life_expectancy
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tzs
Note that the tables there are life expectancy at birth. It would be
interesting to see tables for life expectancy for, say, 30 year olds. Many
countries with low life expectancy get that way mostly because infants and
children have to run a gauntlet of disease. This really brings the average
down.

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tptacek
A recent EconTalk, not sure which one, one of the ones on health care, also
suggested that some countries with very low infant mortality are that way
because they record fewer live births than the US.

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danielweber
This is a decent summary of that issue:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infant_mortality#Measuring_IMR>

The same event taking place in two countries can be called a still-birth in
one and an infant death in another.

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tucaz
Never thought that Cameroon were that bad before. I mean, you know it's a
country in Africa and that's not the best place to be, but you never hear
anything about it. It's not like they are mentioned together with the other
countries where people die all the time.

I also thought that South Africa was not that bad too, but from this point of
view they are in a pretty bad shape.

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clicks
It should be noted that most countries toward the top are among the smallest.

E.g., in this list: 1 Monaco 2 Macau 2 San Marino 3 Andorra the countries
listed are not just small, but among _the_ smallest in the world. Monaco is
not even more than 1 sq. mile!

~~~
simulate
This is a good example of the law of small numbers. The PDF posted to Hacker
News just five days ago provides an excellent explanation of why small
countries would be at both the top and the bottom of this list.
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4893258>

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myth_drannon
at #3 is Israel, with all the stress they have in their daily lives still
manage to live long.

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nraynaud
ouch, splitting France this way is quite frowned upon for political reason.

