Border Counties Have Some of Texas' Longest Lives
From Friday: In East Texas, lives cut short.
Many of the longest lives in Texas are lived in what would seem to be the least likely place: along the state’s impoverished border with Mexico. Despite conditions that should have the opposite effect — desperately low incomes, a widespread lack of health insurance and poor high school graduation rates — the predominantly Hispanic residents of Hidalgo County live to be 80 years old, two years longer than the United States or Texas average. Residents of other Texas border counties live similarly long lives, according to a preliminary county-by-county analysis by the University ...
Comments (3)
Truth Hurts
It's only a paradox if one accepts racist and classist assumptions about Mexicans and Mexican-Americans as fact. The CDC disseminated bizarre theories, including the "salmon theory," as possible explanations for the stats. I would speculate, as everyone is speculating at this point, that our strong family and personal relationships and faith play a key factor. I have long believed that despite the American dismissal of everything Mexican as low-class and inferior, there is a lesson Americans can learn from us Mexicans -- the power of community and human relationships. Where there is love, there is health.
brownsvilleresident
Perhaps longevity is the case for this generation of Hispanics: but the obesity epidemic amongst the children will flip that statistic--and in less than 20 years. A social disaster the likes of which no one has seen in this country since modern medicine.
Jeff Dennis
@Truth Hurts
To clarify, the use of the term "paradox" refers specifically to the health of Hispanics or Mexican Americans as it is associated with their socioeconomic status (SES). That is, I agree with your post, but wanted to make sure it is clear that the term Paradox refers specifically to findings in health & SES data, and is not meant to be a classist categorization.
For whites in the U.S., SES is strongly related to health, such that with each incremental increase in income/education, people are healthier on average. What is paradoxical about Hispanics is that they are, on average, of lower SES than whites, yet they fare better on health outcomes than whites. Thus, what is paradoxical is their good health in spite of lower average SES. African Americans, for example, also have lower SES than whites, but have similarly worse health outcomes as well.
Of all the explanations proposed, I think that the strength of relationships has not been explored as well as it should, because that remains an important cultural trait that must play a role in health.