I don’t know if there is some context to this Bill O’Reilly assertion that Canadian life expectancy is higher because of fewer people, and so fewer absolute fatalities (e.g., he got turned around on the words?). But it got me wondering, how do Canadian provinces relate to American states in terms of life expectancy at birth? It was easy to find male and female life expectancy online from the US and Canadian Census. Below the fold is a dot chart showing the male life expectancies rank ordered. Additionally, there is table (also sorted by male life expectancy) where I’ve bolded Canadian provinces and American states which border Canada. If readers are interested in demographic correlates of mortality, I recommend Eight Americas: Investigating Mortality Disparities across Races, Counties, and Race-Counties in the United States.
| State/Province | Life expectancy at birth Male | Life expectancy at birth Female |
| British Columbia | 78.0 | 83.0 |
| Hawaii | 77.1 | 82.5 |
| Ontario | 77.0 | 82.0 |
| Alberta | 77.0 | 82.0 |
| Utah | 76.5 | 80.6 |
| Minnesota | 76.5 | 81.3 |
| Colorado | 76.1 | 80.4 |
| Nova Scotia | 76.0 | 81.0 |
| New Brunswick | 76.0 | 82.0 |
| Quebec | 76.0 | 82.0 |
| Manitoba | 76.0 | 81.0 |
| Saskatchewan | 76.0 | 82.0 |
| New Hampshire | 75.9 | 80.7 |
| Idaho | 75.9 | 80.2 |
| Washington | 75.9 | 80.5 |
| California | 75.9 | 80.6 |
| Vermont | 75.8 | 80.4 |
| North Dakota | 75.8 | 81.7 |
| Iowa | 75.8 | 80.8 |
| Massachusetts | 75.8 | 80.7 |
| Connecticut | 75.7 | 80.8 |
| Nebraska | 75.6 | 80.6 |
| Oregon | 75.5 | 80.0 |
| Rhode Island | 75.5 | 80.3 |
| Wisconsin | 75.4 | 80.5 |
| New York | 75.1 | 80.2 |
| Maine | 75.1 | 80.0 |
| South Dakota | 75.0 | 80.9 |
| Newfoundland and Labrador | 75.0 | 81.0 |
| Prince Edward Island | 75.0 | 82.0 |
| Kansas | 74.9 | 79.8 |
| Wyoming | 74.9 | 79.3 |
| New Jersey | 74.8 | 79.8 |
| Arizona | 74.7 | 80.2 |
| Montana | 74.7 | 80.0 |
| Florida | 74.6 | 80.3 |
| New Mexico | 74.4 | 80.1 |
| Virginia | 74.3 | 79.1 |
| Alaska | 74.2 | 79.1 |
| Texas | 74.1 | 79.2 |
| Pennsylvania | 74.0 | 79.3 |
| Delaware | 74.0 | 78.9 |
| Illinois | 73.9 | 79.2 |
| Michigan | 73.9 | 78.7 |
| Ohio | 73.8 | 78.7 |
| Maryland | 73.6 | 78.8 |
| Indiana | 73.4 | 78.6 |
| Nevada | 73.4 | 78.7 |
| Missouri | 73.4 | 78.7 |
| North Carolina | 72.7 | 78.4 |
| Oklahoma | 72.6 | 77.6 |
| Georgia | 72.3 | 77.8 |
| Kentucky | 72.3 | 77.9 |
| West Virginia | 72.3 | 77.7 |
| Arkansas | 72.1 | 77.9 |
| Tennessee | 71.8 | 77.7 |
| South Carolina | 71.6 | 77.9 |
| Alabama | 71.3 | 77.5 |
| Louisiana | 71.2 | 77.3 |
| Mississippi | 70.4 | 76.7 |
| District of Columbia | 68.5 | 76.1 |
Interesting, David Hume. The state/province data indicates a large racial difference in life expectancy. The paper had good numbers, although the conclusions were not always believable. I was struck by the line:
“Because policies aimed at reducing fundamental socioeconomic inequalities are currently practically absent in the US…”
Were they kidding?!
Probably not kidding, John. It really depends on how you choose to define “policies aimed at reducing fundamental socioeconomic inequalities.” By my standards, there are plenty of those policies in place. By the standards of Jeremiah Wright or Henry Louis “Squeaky” Gates, Jr., there are no policies in place for reducing socioeconomic equalities.
correlation != causation tends to go out of the window for “rigorous” scientists when politics comes into the picture 🙂 correlation for thee, but not for me….
O’Reilly’s comment is of course mathematically illiterate.
However, a straight comparison between U.S. states and Canadian provinces is not valid unless adjusted for the ethnic differences between the various populations. The U.S.’s large black population has bad public health stats. The U.S. also has a large hispanic population, much of which is recent-immigrant – both categories associated with public health problems.
There is very little health-statistics difference between white-bread Americans and Canadians.
The U.S. also has a large hispanic population, much of which is recent-immigrant – both categories associated with public health problems.
the immigrant latinos have better health than native born latinos. this is a robust finding, and generally brought up in public health circles because of its counterintuitve nature.
There is very little health-statistics difference between white-bread Americans and Canadians.
that’s false. please read the attached paper if you are dubious. there are big differences *among* white americans by region. this is a well known. canadian whites are like new englanders and upper midwesterners, not like southerners. but it does look like canadians do still have a modest advantage over new englanders and upper midwesterners, on average (see the table).
you should do some digging into the data before assuming and asserting. you can tell there are differences among whites simply by inspection of the list above; arkansas, western virginia, and kentucky don’t have large enough black populations to skew it that much. west virginia doesn’t have a large latino population. do some algebra first, it’s pretty simple (though to be fair, you don’t need to, the paper i linked has demographic breakdowns by region & race).
for the record, white non-hispanic life expec in 2000:
male – 74.8
female – 80.1
hispanic:
male – 73.7
female – 79.6
canada life expec, 2000
male – 76
female – 83
the modest life expec. diff between canada and american whites masks the fact that there’s a relatively large variance in the USA, so that whites who live near canada are basically like canadians, and whites who live far from canada drag the average down.
cite, cite and cite.
The authors of the Eight Americas paper point out the the disparity in death rates is highest for young and middle aged males. In a book called “Health Disparities in the United States,” there is a table that summarizes life expectancy by age and sex for nine industrialized nations. At age 40, life expectancy for Canadian males is 38.9y, and life expectancy for US males is 37.0y, for a difference of 1.9y. At age 60, the difference in Canadian and US male life expectancies is 0.9y, and at age 80, the difference is 0.1y. Among the nine nations, the US ties with Germany for lowest male life expectancy at age 40, but it ranks 3rd (behind Canada and Japan) for male life expectancy at age 80.
This makes me wonder, how much of the difference in Canadian and US life expectancy is attributable to the fact that the US more than Canada concentrates its health care expenditures on older patients? And is this difference compounded by the fact that the US has a younger population than Canada?
When will this country finally learn and socialized health care? Though any socialized public service may lead to poorer service overall (e.g. every government worker I’ve met). With the right safe guards and policy in place, it can work. I’m glad President Obama seems to be taking steps toward that direction.
You have to go almost halfway down the chart (i.e. into the higher-life-expectancy part of the distribution) to find a province of Canada; meanwhile, 3 of the best 5 and 6 of the best 10 are Canadian provinces, despite being numerically outnumbered by U.S. states.
Demographic quibbles notwithstanding, that’s a pretty stark difference.
Here’s a challenge for politicians – put your health where your mouth is. The sad news reported today is that Senator Christopher Dodd has prostate cancer. I would suggest that he arrange to have it treated in Canada or in France, in cooperation with their governments, but to do so anonymously by not playing on his status.
If politicians believe that socialized medicine doesn’t involve rationing of care or a lowering of quality of care, then Senator Dodd should have nothing to worry about with his health. He can film a documentary which shows how he, playing an ordinary Canadian or French citizen, is processed through a government run health care system. My only suggestion before he embarks on this PR coup is that he shouldn’t read reports like this:
I bolded the assertions that Canadian rates don’t have great variance. If the lower and upper bounds on survivability are 0% and 100%, then I could buy into the notion that a variance of 6.1% is pretty narrow, but if the bound are 60% and 90% then a 6% difference, by my subjective standards, would be something to be concerned about.
Interesting how narrow the band of variation is once you toss out the outliers, like the South, Hawaii and BC. I don’t think lifespan is much of an argument either way when it comes to this issue.