Does Zip Code Impact Our Life Expectancy?
An organization I volunteered with once asked me to speak about zip codes and life expectancy. I have no idea why they asked me to do so since I don’t have a background as a data scientist.
However, the more I research this topic, the more I found it intriguing and related to how we treat our built environment.
Yet, I tried to answer these questions while understanding this topic.
Question 1. What is Life Expectancy?
“Life expectancy” is one of our demographic projections. It is a statistical measure of the average of our life span. It is also a way to indicate the health of our generation and a way to predict the demographic future.
Typically, researchers use life expectancy as a health indicator for each generation. In this way, they can predict our society’s future growth or aging, thus planning further for society’s future needs.
As many problems emerge as our society grows, the good news is that we tend to live longer and longer. According to the census bureau in the US, life expectancy rose nine years from 1960 to 2010, will rises seven years from 2010 to 2060 and will increase 17 years for men from 1960 to 2060.
“So how do scientists know our life expectancy since we are not in the year 2060 yet?”, I was curious.
I am not a scientist; thus, I cannot show how life expectancy is precisely calculated. But, one of the methods is to use Farr’s Law: qx = Mx / (Bx + (Mx/2))
- Where qx= death probability from age x to x+1
- Where Mx = the number of deaths at the age of x to under x+1 years in the reported period
- Where Bx = average population aged x to under x+1 in the base period
In other words, researchers use the historical mortality data and assume the rate is constant to predict how long each generation will live.
Question 2. Why is the life expectancy pattern distributed as we see now?
I read about this map from the book “Factfullness” and wonder if there is any correlation between life expectancy and geographic locations. According to this book, the author thinks our life expectancy is directly associated with our income level, not necessarily related to our geographic area.
Though I don’t get my answer, I felt grateful to live in a region with the highest income level. (That means I was able to live on more than $32 a day! Wa-lah!)
Hans Rosling has a valid point and solid evidence to back up his theory of life expectancy and our income level which I was not entirely convinced. I looked closer this map; it is obvious some people seem to live longer than other regions, even with the same income level. For example, within the same income level, people in Japan has life expectancy of 85 years old compare to people lives in UK who only have life expectancy of 81 years old.
Dr. Patel and his exposome study
As stubborn as I am, I decided to look further.
Then I found an interesting experiment by Dr. Patel (Chirag Patel, PhD). He was collecting extensive insurance claims data to estimate genetic and environmental contributions for 560 typical diseases. He narrowed the data down to 700,000 pairs of non-twin siblings and 56,000 twins to compare the genetic and environmental influence.
Above is the chart of his result. It explained among those 560 widespread diseases, the cause influenced by biological deficiency is only 30%; the trigger impacted by the surrounding environment and lifestyle is more than 50%. (Such as Anemia, almost 80% of its cause is by “Exposome.” On the other hand, compare to Developmental Disorders, only 25% was caused by “Exposome.”)
So, there is an environmental factor that causes our disease. “Will any of these diseases influence our mortality rate?” I kept asking myself.
Question 3. What are the leading causes of death in the United States?
According to CDC, these are the Leading Causes of Death in the United States:
- Heart disease: 659,041.
- Cancer: 599,601.
- Accidents (unintentional injuries): 173,040.
- Chronic lower respiratory diseases: 156,979.
- Stroke (cerebrovascular diseases): 150,005.
- Alzheimer’s disease: 121,499.
- Diabetes: 87,647.
- Nephritis, nephrotic syndrome, and nephrosis: 51,565.
From Dr. Patel’s exposome study, diseases such as “heart disease” and “cancers” are not necessarily related to our built environment. But, our environment certainly causes “obesity.” According to CDC, there are “approximately 137 million US adults who were obese in 2018. Obesity-related conditions, such as heart disease, stroke, and Type 2 diabetes are among the leading causes of preventable and premature death.”
The half-way conclusion
So go back to the original question, “does zip code impact our life expectancy”?
Then I firmly believe the answer is YES. We could form an equation like this:
- Some zip codes share similar environmental attributes>>
- These environmental characteristics cause obesity>>
- Obesity causes heart-related disease and diabetes> >
- Heart-related illness and diabetes significantly impacts our mortality rate>>
- Our mortality rate projects our future life expectancy.
Question 4. What are environmental attributes that impact our obesity rate?
Many environmental attributes influence our obesity, such as our lifestyles, including how we eat, drink, or whether we smoke or not. But as a designer and urbanist, I felt compelled to share my perspective.
Trees vs. Mental well-beings
“Residents living in relatively barren buildings reported more aggression and violence than their counterparts in greener buildings. Moreover, levels of mental fatigue were higher in barren buildings, and aggression accompanied mental fatigue.”
The quote above is from a study done by Ming Kuo and William C Sullivan. They investigated a neighborhood on the southern side of Chicago and found out that accessing green space transformed people’s emotional states and social lives. Their discovery helped to establish a clear link between exposure to nature and our behaviors.
Streetfront vs. Involuntary attention
According to other psychology professors, Rachel and Stephen Kaplan, they explained how we pay attention to our surroundings could be categorized in two ways-”Extension” (voluntary attention) and “Fascination (involuntary attention).”
When we consciously look for the information provided by the environment or try to navigate city streets, we were using our voluntary attention. When we give in to our surroundings effortlessly, like a daydream in a park or a relaxing afternoon stroll in the neighborhood, we exercise our involuntary attention.
If you want to test this theory, just asked yourself if you ever felt tired when you walked down on Main Street in Disney World.
In other words, if we make our streets more enjoyable to walk on. We do not really “feel” like we are walking (for exercise). And we are not stressed out on going from point A to point B within a specific time frame. We subconsciously walk more steps because it is an engaging and effortless activity.
Mixed-Use vs. Walkability
What is Mixed-Use? If a planner explains to you, they might show you this map, point the area with two to three colors of stripes. Mixed Land Use means areas operate with various land use functions, such as commercial and residential. To simplify this term: it is a place for people to work, live, shop, and play into a walkable area.
Do you share a similar experience: driving to a mall location, riding an escalator on the way to the gym floor, and starting your routine exercise? Have you ever wondered if you could consume similar calories by walking to the mall location and walking up to the gym floor without “exercise“?
I think the photo above can describe best what mixed-use entails. I like this photo not because I am a yoga lover, but we can almost see all the elements required for mixed-use from this photo. You can see people exercising and playing, but there are also shoppers and diners in the same space. You will not only find walking people but parked cars and bikes on the streets as well. The example here showed us that we need various aggregate programs together, so walking becomes an easy (and convenient) thing to do.
Let’s imagine
Imagine if all our neighborhoods offer all the essential activities within a few blocks, have more trees, and more pleasant streets to walk on. Perhaps chasing certain zip codes to stay in is not really necessary.
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