Federal funding is heavily weighted towards HIV, malnutrition, and diabetes.
What is under funded?
NY Times displays a wonderful visual representing how heavily our tax dollars are used to finance research.
If the ’cause’ of death is too far above or below that bold line (ie linear regression), then Federal funding might be mis-appropriated.
Under studied topics become clear… Gun violence, Drowning, Nephrosis, Asphyxia, Car accidents
Of note, heart disease is the #1 cause of mortality. It typically comes from stress.
Hypertension is higher in lower wealth communities (state wide study). Lower income adults feel more stressed which contributes to heart disease.
What is Not displayed on the graphic above – – the direct results of researching and studying economic development.
Merely being low wealth and low income would seem to be a greater threat to life expectancy than most of the ’causes’ listed on this chart. Just an FYI, the CDC is who makes this list of “causes” – then the data is simply rearranged and crunched in different ways by scientists.
Wealth status isn’t classified as a cause of mortality, but it certainly should be.
A 2016 study (Brody and Miller et al) shows that economic disparities and racial discrimination contribute to aging (decreased life expectancy and increased mortality).
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0956797615626703
https://scholar.google.com/scholar?client=ms-android-agold&um=1&ie=UTF-8&lr&cites=8184748322224626325
The study also shows that emotional support can reverse these effects.
Notwithstanding the health solutions (which don’t alleviate the underlying wealth disparities), poverty alone might be the #1 cause of mortality.
Philosophers have long described what the economics of “perfect” societies look like.
The solutions to these national public health crises really are quite simple. But only the individual can make a personal choice on what role to play in contributing to America being a ‘perfect’ nation.