“This map shows the life expectancy at birth of those living around each London Underground, London Overground and Docklands Light Railway (DLR) station and 2) the rank of each London ward on the spectrum of Income Deprivation Affecting Children Index (IDACI). The inclusion of the IDACI rank highlights the linkage between deprivation and life expectancy, which is especially poignant in this context as it demonstrates that, without significant social change (obviously, if the social composition of London changes radically then the life expectancies at each station will change with it), the fates of many children living in the poorest parts of London are seemingly already sealed.”
From here.
3 responses to “The accident of birth – London edition”
This is interesting, but I have the opposite reaction to the data – it looks almost shockingly positive. A large share of people on that map outlive the average American, and almost all of them outlive the average black American male:
http://nonparibus.wordpress.com/2012/07/24/deprivation-and-life-expectancy-in-london-things-really-arent-that-bad/
That is because we have the National Health Service: free healthcare at the point of use.
I don’t think I can find the citation now, but I saw an amazing graph in a presentation by Ryan Edwards at the Stanford Formal Demography Workshop in May – it decomposed the variance in mortality for different countries by age, and showed that the unequal outcomes in the US are driven by a high variance for people under 65. What’s more, that pattern emerged starting in the late 1960s, exactly when Medicare kicked in for American seniors. It was the most striking illustration of the problems with our healthcare system I’ve ever seen.