Beyond Labels

Charles sent this from XKCD. I thought it was worth editing and posting. If you don’t know XKCD, take a look and hit random.

We’ll discuss life expectancy in the US vs. historical trends and vs. other, similar countries.

• What’s driving the divergence between US life expectancy and the similar statistic on other countries? Differences in…
  • Health care?
  • Lifestyle?
  • Obesity, diabetes, etc.?
  • Drug addiction/abuse?
  • Mental health?
  • Risk-taking?
  • Economic differentials?
  • What else?
• And what should we do (if anything) to close the gap vs. our peer countries?

Here are a few articles to get you going:

• NYTimes: The Rise of the Haphazard Self (courtesy of Duncan Neuhauser)
• Health System Tracker: How does U.S. life expectancy compare to other countries?
• Stanford Medicine Blog: Why is life expectancy in the U.S. going down? A Q&A.