The Impact Of Socioeconomic Factors On The Racial Gap In Life Expectancy

While I believe there that there is no simple cause-effect explanation for life expectancy, there are striking correlations (as income levels) that need to be addressed to promote justice for all of us…

From the 11 April 2011 article at Medical News Today

Differences in factors such as income, education and marital status could contribute overwhelmingly to the gap in life expectancy between blacks and whites in the United States, according to one of the first studies to put a number on how much of the divide can be attributed to disparities in socioeconomic characteristics.

A Princeton University study recently published in the journal Demography reveals that socioeconomic differences can account for 80 percent of the life-expectancy divide between black and white men, and for 70 percent of the imbalance between black and white women.

Numerous existing studies on the topic have found that mortality differences are associated with certain socioeconomic disparities, but have not determined to what extent the life expectancy gap can be explained by such contrasts, noted author Michael Geruso, a doctoral student in Princeton’s Department of Economics. …