Americans Live Longer, Still Lag Other Rich Countries

[Igel]

2. You quote effect.

Not cause.

Go to a poor area and you find that it's not the area and it's not the poverty, it's the people.

In general: more education = better health. Control for race and ethnicity, more education = better health. Control for age, and more education = better health. Control for geography, more education = better health. Control for income, and more education = better health.

This is in addition to the generalization that more education = better income. If you take all families making 12-15k/year (making sure to eliminate health as a reason for the low income) and pick the bottom and top quartiles for education, you'll find a health difference, even if the education difference is likely to be not all that great.

In general, geographical differences are a matter of accident (although if you're agrarian, living in a rich, fertile area is probably better than living in a swamp or the Sonoran desert).

For some groups, it's not a big difference. But we're talking aggregate here, so even that little difference would alter the overall statistics. Yes, it's appropriate to blame the victim.