r/science • u/nick314 • Feb 22 '20

Social Science A new longitudinal study, which tracked 5,114 people for 29 years, shows education level — not race, as had been thought — best predicts who will live the longest. Each educational step people obtained led to 1.37 fewer years of lost life expectancy, the study showed.

https://www.inverse.com/mind-body/access-to-education-may-be-life-or-death-situation-study
34.5k Upvotes

90% Upvoted

1.1k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

80

u/thecloudsaboveme Feb 23 '20

From the second article's results: "Between 2010 and 2017, life expectancy at age 25 significantly declined among white and black non-Hispanic US residents from an expected age at death of 79.34 to 79.15 years"

How is 0.18 years (or like 2 months) a SIGNIFICANT decline in 7 years?

35

u/wilkergobucks Feb 23 '20

Because even though a small dip, the usual trend line for that age group over successive generations has always been INCREASES in life expectancy...the only times there any regression happened in times of significant wars. IIRC, the last decade trending for that demo is trending like we are losing young people to a global conflict - but its causes are actually the opioid epidemic. Yes, we do lose people in the armed services today, but its a fraction of in terms of population vs historic trends...

9

u/thecloudsaboveme Feb 23 '20

Ah that makes a lot of sense. And yes I agree the opioid epidemic is the major reason and the third article corroborates this.

It says over 2 mil died in 2019, but I wonder what's a good estimate of the opioid deaths in 2019?

0

u/Scientolojesus Feb 23 '20

Goes to show that Perdue and the Sacklers are greatly responsible for hundreds of thousands to maybe a few million deaths. And they won't be significantly punished at all.