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Death rate for US children surges 25 percent in 10 years (www.wsws.org)
submitted 1 year ago by to c/news@lemmy.world
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The death rate for US children has surged by 25 percent over the past decade, according to a study published last month by pediatrician Dr. Christopher Forrest and colleagues in the Journal of the American Medical Association. Even as the child mortality rate has slowly fallen in other developed countries, it has surged in the US, along with every other indicator of chronic illness.

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[+] 64 points 1 year ago (27 children)
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  • [–] 34 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (8 children)

    It's not actually healthcare that's making the difference, though (at least not for children >1 year old; not sure about infants). The real causes of the high death rate are cultural: shootings, car wrecks (i.e. car-dependent infrastructure), and drugs.

    Basically, the actual policy changes we need to fix this problem are:

    • economic reform to reduce inequality (which is the root cause of the despair that leads to drug addiction and violence), and
    • zoning reform to abolish unwalkable low-density sprawl.

    (Side note: although I posted the chart from the article, I don't support its bias: "firearms" and "homicide" should not be separate categories. Attributing the problem to access to guns is bullshit; there are other places that have similar access but don't have the death rate. The real difference is that people in those places simply don't want to kill kids as much Americans do to begin with.)

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  • [–] 10 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

    Net differences in rates =/= rates.

    Over the last 30 years cars are the largest killers of kids.

    I would say gun violence taking the lead is actually due to work from home reducing car traffic and therefore collisions.

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  • [–] 0 points 1 year ago (5 children)

    LMFAO "the main reason is guns, but I don't like that so let's mix the data into other categories to obfuscate the issue so no one else can use it to support gun reform"

    Yeah, other countries have access to guns, but they also have a lot more licensing requirements and restrictions. That keeps guns away from idiots, unsafe people, and criminals. That's the difference, gun reform.

    You 2A people have zero reading comprehension because I've never seen one of you in a well regulated militia.

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  • [–] 7 points 1 year ago (4 children)

    Do you even begin to comprehend how absolutely sick and twisted it is to be like "hurr durr let's make society so toxic that everybody wants to murder everybody else and that's A-OK as long as we don't let them access easy means to do it!"?

    WTF is wrong with you, that you refuse to acknowledge -- let alone work to solve -- the real problem?!

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  • [–] -1 points 1 year ago* (3 children)

    Buddy, the average American isn't any more depraved as anyone else. The US just gives guns to people who shouldn't have them and then provides them no training nor help with their problems.

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  • [–] 6 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    Buddy, the US is quickly becoming a third world country. Yes, mass school shooting are normalized but that's the symptom not the root problem.

    nor help with their problems

    See? You identified it yourself. Universal healthcare that includes quality mental health care that isn't driven by profit is the solution to the listed problems, I'm not sure why they listed drugs and failed to recognize healthcare as the solution that too, but people turn to drugs to drown the depression they can't treat in a healthy way.

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  • [–] 4 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 child)

    I’m not sure why they listed drugs and failed to recognize healthcare as the solution that too

    Because pumping people full of Prozac instead of fentanyl (or whatever they turned to to cope) does fuck-all to solve them having to juggle three jobs while still barely being able to afford rent on their shitty apartment and being justifiably in despair about it.

    The real problem isn't a chemical imbalance if your life actually does suck!

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  • [–] -3 points 1 year ago*

    USA is a society of violence, and guns is a significant part of that.
    USA needs both socioeconomic reform and much stricter gun control laws.
    Just because you can't blame guns alone, it doesn't follow that guns aren't a significant part of the problem.
    It's both the mentality like stand your ground, and 3 times and you're out, and the guns that enable extreme violence extremely easy.
    Already common rhetoric is extremely violent in USA, with "the war" on everything. How's that war on drugs going? When did it begin? Wasn't it in the 80's? That's nearing a half a century war now! No other country in the world has been at continuous war for that long.

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  • [+] -16 points 1 year ago (17 children)

    Statistics are so easy to manipulate. Look at the actual data and it's obviously click-bait. Yeah the number is up but not so much in context.

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  • [–] 22 points 1 year ago (16 children)

    In 2014, US children were about 1.6 times more likely to die than their counterparts in peer countries. By 2022, that gap had widened dramatically: American children were now 2.3 times as likely to die.

    The authors estimated that between 2007 and 2022, an additional 316,000 US child deaths were attributable to the gap in mortality compared to other developed countries. This is equivalent to a staggering 54 excess child deaths per day in the US.

    That seems significant enough. Do you have a criticism other than "they used statistics"?

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  • [–] -2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

    I have a criticism.

    "The authors estimated that between 2007 and 2022, an additional 316,000 US child deaths were attributable to the gap in mortality compared to other developed countries."

    No one should consider the US a developed country.

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  • [–] -4 points 1 year ago (14 children)

    "Staggering" and "dramatically" are not statistical terms.

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  • [–] 4 points 1 year ago (13 children)

    They are descriptive terms used in the article to describe the statistics. They don't change the statistics, 54 excess child deaths a day.

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  • [–] -2 points 1 year ago (12 children)

    I could do without the editorialization then. I could use some help interpreting the numbers, but they lose me with words like "staggering".

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago (11 children)

    How would you describe 54 excess child deaths per day? Harrowing maybe? Depressing perhaps?

    Or you think it's possibly not one of this? It's it comforting to you? Pretty weird one to be upset over and describe as editorialization.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago* (10 children)

    The US population is 300 million so I would want to know whether 54 is a lot or a few. 54 excess means we expected to get N, but instead we got N+54. So my first question is: what is N? Are we over by a few percent, or by a factor of 20, or what?

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago (9 children)

    See? You're arguing over a word without bothering to read the article or understand the statistic.

    The question "what is N" doesn't make sense here. Excess child deaths doesn't mean we expect N deaths and are okay with that...

    Let me explain:

    1. Take the actual U.S. child deaths.

    2. Compute a counterfactual N* = how many would have died if the U.S. had the same age-specific child mortality rates as peer rich countries.

    3. Excess = Actual − N*. It’s the avoidable difference, not an acceptable target.

    That’s why the piece says ~316,000 excess child deaths (≈54 per day) from 2007–2022, those are deaths above what we’d expect if U.S. kids had peer-country risk.

    And if you want scale: U.S. kids weren’t a few percent worse off. In 2014 they were ~1.6× more likely to die than peers; by 2022 it was ~2.3×—that’s 60% to 130% higher risk, not “a factor of 20,” but nowhere near “just a little bit” either. It's staggering!

    If a toy number helps: suppose peers have 25 deaths per 100k children in a year and the U.S. has ~58 per 100k. Apply those rates to the U.S. child population and you’d “expect” ~N* at the peer rate but observe far more; the gap between them is the excess. The study’s bottom line is that this gap averaged ~54 preventable child deaths every day over 16 years.

    In other words, the US is a third world country.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago* (8 children)

    Thanks, yes, we agree about what excess means. Rather than toy numbers I was hoping you could supply the actual numbers. It might be easiest to compare actuarial tables for different countries. Also, if the number of excess deaths has shot up suddenly in the past 5 years, that might be from COVID. We would have to look at medical, public health, and other explanations. Nowadays we also have to add vaccine hesitancy.

    I live in the US and would say it's pretty good in some ways and messed up others, like most countries. This sounds like one of the messed up parts, but I think I can say that without sensationalism.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago (7 children)

    COVID affected all other developed nations being compared. Again the N you're seeking doesn't matter.

    If we had 1,000 additional deaths per day worldwide, it still wouldn't be counted in the excess deaths. Excess deaths is relative to other developed nations.

    Why did their excess deaths not rise similarly? What's unique about the US? It's not COVID, friend.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago (6 children)

    The US had some really terrible COVID policies about masking, school ventilation, etc. Other countries were often better, sometimes worse. And now we've got RFK Jr running the asylum.

    Anyway, as you say, excess deaths are relative to other nations, so I need to know the baseline. That's N, and yes it matters.

    At the moment it seems to me that the US has worse overall health and shorter life expectancy than, say, EU countries, but not by huge margins.[1] That's for all ages and income levels. Not good, but not something that makes me immediately want to move, and I feel more threatened by other things like accelerating global warming.

    [1] https://www.vice.com/en/article/money-cant-buy-life-the-richest-americans-die-earlier-than-the-poorest-europeans/

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago (5 children)

    Not good, but not something that makes me immediately want to move

    Okay... I didn't realize we're talking about your personal tolerance of it, as long as you're okay with it I guess the numbers aren't staggering.

    We aren't talking about overall life expectancy, we're talking about excess child mortality. COVID affected children the least, remember.

    I feel more threatened by other things like accelerating global warming.

    You can have multiple concerns, you really don't have to champion just one issue and attack all others. Recall your objections and the whole argument we're having is because you're insisting the article is editorializing 54 excess child deaths a day by calling it staggering. Would you complain the same way about an article describing the average annual increase of global temperature as staggering?

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (4 children)

    I would like to know whether the excess child mortality is something to actually worry about, let's say if I had kids. There is a chance of my kid being eaten by a leopard but here in the urban US, it's unlikely enough that it's not one of the hazards I take special precautions against. Again, it comes down to the likelihood, which means what is N. If you don't know N, then describing a related number as "staggering" is just a bluff. Let's presume "child" means age < 18, and my kid is currently 8. What is the likelihood of his not surviving childhood, compared to other countries? To find that, you need N, or something computed using N, such as life insurance premiums.

    It's editorialization but less of a bluff to describe global warming as staggering, since it can be backed up with evidence of real impact that it has on everyone, where it is going, and that it needs interventions if it isn't too late for those.

    By comparison, look at the freakouts about kids being abducted by strangers. It happens and it makes headlines, but it's very rare compared to abductions by relatives, for example. I'm very glad to have not been overprotected from this when I was a kid. Being able to go out by myself when I wanted made me independent in a good way, imho.

    The child mortality difference sounds to me like a consequence of the well known suckage of the US healthcare system, but wrapped in "think of the children!"[0] breathlessness. If it's disproportionate I'd like to see data indicating this.

    And yes, COVID affects children[1,2], another example of crazy US COVID policy.

    [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Think_of_the_children

    [1] https://www.imperial.ac.uk/news/242894/covid-19-leading-cause-death-children-young/

    [2] https://www.thegauntlet.news/p/long-covid-is-now-the-number-one

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago (3 children)

    The child mortality difference sounds to me like a consequence of the well known suckage of the US healthcare system, but wrapped in "think of the children!"[0] breathlessness. If it's disproportionate I'd like to see data indicating this.

    You're being obtuse. The article just said the numbers are staggering, which they are. It didn't attempt to manipulate your emotions to think of the children.

    Yes, the suckage of healthcare system, let's agree that it's the root cause of all other problems (poor mental health + no support systems + education system that allows bullying + people self medicating with synthetic drugs, etc etc) all contribute greatly to child morality, and the result is staggering and needs to be addressed.

    You're so offended by the word staggering that despite listing a reason for it yourself, you're still complaining about the words instead of the actual problem you yourself identified.

    Why does the richest country in the world have a healthcare system that sucks so bad it causes staggering excess child deaths? Don't think of the children brother, think of their parents, friend, society at large. Don't be okay with being SO MUCH WORSE than your fellow developed nations while tax dollars fund genocide and universal healthcare for another nation.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

    The article just said the numbers are staggering

    To this day I don't know whether the numbers are staggering. Maybe they are, but your unsupported assertion (and the article's) doesn't make it true. I can be staggered by a number if I can understand what it means in the context of other risks we are all exposed to. Data like "your 8yo kid has 10% lower chance of surviving childhood than an 8yo in Sweden" or something like that would be cause for concern (an understatement, since it means that the likelihood of US 8yos surviving childhood is at most 90%).

    You instead use charged adjectives on numbers with no context, a classic manipulation technique. Maybe not on purpose since you don't seem like much of a critical thinker, but it doesn't matter. That you haven't recognized the importance of N suggests that you don't understand the base rate fallacy (look it up).

    Anyway, I don't see any reason to continue this discussion, so have fun.

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    • [–] 17 points 1 year ago*

    Anti-vax, no school lunches, cuts to CPS, anti abortion or access to prenatal care, rising food and daycare costs, health care denials and so on...

    JD Vance: We want more babies.

    Trump: To fuck maybe...

    JD Vance: In what way?

    Trump: Yes.

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    [–] 3 points 1 year ago

    MAGAMAHA

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    [–] 2 points 1 year ago

    I wonder if Bobby Jerkyskin doling out measles like demonic Oprah will improve these stats 🤔

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    [–] 1 point 1 year ago

    Soon there will be a critical mass of people who have nothing left to lose

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