Life expectancy is a horrible metric to look at, amirite?

Why think that life expectancy is unrelated to quality of life metrics? As long as there's a correlation then life expectancy will tell you something, even if it's limited or imperfect information.

by Anonymous 7 hours ago

People in countries with short life expectancy do not typically die because their arteries were clogged due to the excessive consumption of parmigiano reggiano.

by Anonymous 7 hours ago

Yeah, there's no data to be investigated if in one area people are dying at age 30 and in another they are living to 80... Nope. No reason to look into that at all.

by conniewuckert 6 hours ago

But in such an instance, are people really reaching thirty then dying, or is a massive amount of children born dying shortly. That's the thing with life expectancy, it makes people believe there are no adults or old people in dangerous areas. In reality the data is skewed by levels of child mortality.

by Anonymous 6 hours ago

Still important date to look at, though!

by blockbobbie 6 hours ago

Does that matter? It tells the story of the area. It's a mistake to believe danger is the only cause of low life expectancy.

by Necessary-Cup7128 6 hours ago

I think you're thinking about this the wrong way. Yeah if you're comparing life expectancy between Italy and Japan it doesn't say much about the economy, it's mostly about diet and how active they are. But it definitely is usefull when comparing Malawi to Sweden or something. People in Malawi have a lower life expectancy because of stuff associated with lower income economies.

by Anonymous 6 hours ago

"Why do researches make this stupid obvious mistake?" They don't.

by TouristWorking6250 6 hours ago

Ehhh sometimes we still use it but only because we don't always control what data is available to us but it comes with the knowledge and usually statements about the limits. It's still useful but QALYs is just objectively better because it is also more customizable for a skilled researcher

by Anonymous 6 hours ago

It is successful just because it is easy to compute. Correct. It's not meant to be an all-encompassing stat to cover everything. It's meant to be a quick, easy to understand and process stat. The actual value isn't even particularly useful; it's the rate of change that's more important.

by Kind-Initiative-3173 5 hours ago

If you saw two population groups with wildly different life expectancy, wouldn't that tell there's an important difference between the groups? I think it's obvious that there's something worth investigation if Group A lives 90 years and Group C lives 50 years. When you knock a solution without offering a better one, you're only providing half of an opinion.

by ruben42 5 hours ago

Blue zones are definitely doing something right if they can get a majority to 100+ healthy.

by Single-Sentence-2842 5 hours ago

Just because it doesn't pinpoint a reason for the low life expectancy doesn't mean it doesn't tell you anything.

by Necessary-Cup7128 4 hours ago

as other mentioned, It definitely has value, but we just need to better understand the limits of the metric. just like GDP per capita one economics is useful, but you need to understand that after a certain threshold, you need to also look at the wealth disparity.

by Anonymous 4 hours ago

Definitely an unpopular opinion. Much like Van Halen's rider line item of "no brown M&Ms," it's an easy metric to see if there's a location or population that warrants more scrutiny. Locations or populations that have life expectancies that deviate significantly from the norm likely have some explanation for those deviations. Few people look at low life expectancy and simply think, "those people bad."

by rohanjonathon 4 hours ago

Mental health is a huge factor in shorter lives, so life expectancy sorta has life quality built in. If you aren't enjoying life, you aren't following the steps to stay healthy. Good hygiene, regular checkups, eating well, exercise, being social etc etc. If a population has a high life expectancy, there can be outliers living in poor conditions, but widespread longevity is only possible when the majority have sustained access to healthcare, sanitation, safety, and basic quality-of-life essentials.

by Anonymous 4 hours ago

My Dad died this month. He was 72. My Mom, his ex wife, kept saying how young he was. It kind of annoyed me. I felt he had lived a good life and died at a reasonable age, but she expects everyone lives to 95 these days.

by Tricky-Bar-4384 4 hours ago