How many US deaths are caused by poverty, low levels of education and other social factors?
Thursday, June 16, 2011 - 15:00
in Health & Medicine
How researchers classify and quantify causes of death across a population has evolved in recent decades. In addition to long-recognized physiological causes such as heart attack and cancer, the role of behavioral factorsincluding smoking, dietary patterns and inactivitybegan to be quantified in the 1990s. More recent research has begun to look at the contribution of social factors to U.S. mortality. In the first comprehensive analysis of such studies, researchers at Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health found that poverty, low levels of education, poor social support and other social factors contribute about as many deaths in the U.S. as such familiar causes as heart attacks, strokes and lung cancer.
