Urban Men Living in Danger
City Living Increases Male
Mortality Risk by 125 Percent
If you are a guy and you live in the city,
you increase your chance of dying
prematurely compared to your suburban
brothers, a new study says. (ArtToday)
By Robin Eisner
N E W Y O R K, Nov. 30 — Be afraid. Be very afraid if
you are a man living in a city.
A man living “la vida” urban increases his likelihood of
dying prematurely by 125 percent compared to a man
residing in either the suburbs or bucolic rural areas,
according to a new University of Michigan nationwide survey
of 3,617 adults.
The survey results are published in the December issue
of the American Journal of Public Health.
City Living Likened To Smoking Risk
“The excess mortality risk among men residing in cities rivals
that of cigarette smoking, social isolation, low income and
other major psychosocial risk factors for mortality,” says
study lead author James S. House. House is director of the
survey center at the University of Michigan Institute for Social
Research in Ann Arbor.
What researchers did to reveal this alarming finding was
follow 3,617 adults who lived throughout the country and
were more than 25 years old. They interviewed them
between 1986 and 1994.
Earlier research had looked at death among populations
living in certain cities, such as the 1990 study that found a
black man living in Harlem, N.Y., had a higher likelihood of
dying than a man in Bangladesh. Another 1995 study
examined death among the elderly and showed that rural
residents aged 55 to 74 had a lower mortality than their
urban counterparts.
Study: Nationwide and Prospective
These findings, the investigators say, represent the first
prospective study examining the impact of residence on
mortality across all ages and across the country.
Twenty-four percent of the sample lived in cities, 47 percent
in suburbs, and 29 percent in small towns or rural areas.
The advantage of a study that goes forward in time
rather than backward, experts say, is that data is available
from the onset. Going back in time and finding old health
information, for example, can be problematic.
The Michigan researchers collected information about
age, sex, race and marital and socioeconomic status and
self-reported measures of health, including smoking, drinking
and physical exercise.
By 1994, 542 people had died, the investigators found.
After performing a statistical analysis, they teased out the
likelihood of death for men and women, independent of
socioeconomic status, smoking and other health issues.
White Men At More Risk
Living in a city, they found, carried an excess hazard of
mortality only for men under the age of 65, and particularly
for white men. Black men had an equal likelihood of dying
living in the city or a suburb.
While researchers saw the increased risk of death in all
types and sizes of cities, they found that urban men were
more likely to have died from infections and tumors.
“Elevated levels of tumor deaths suggest the influence of
physical, chemical and biological exposures in urban areas, “
House says, adding that the stresses of urban life may
exacerbate immune suppression in men.
Stress, Pollution Possible Factors
“Living in cities also involves potentially stressful levels of
noise, sensory stimulation and overload, interpersonal
relations and conflict, and vigilance against hazards ranging
from crime to accidents,” House says.
Women don’t seem to have the same risk, House says,
because they might have some “social, psychological or
biological resources that buffer or protect them from the
hazard of city life.”
The majority of blacks who live in the suburbs are not
better or worse off socio-economically than those who live in
nearby cities, says House, and their death risk was equal in
both places.
Critics: Urban Types At Risk Elsewhere
Some experts criticized the study, questioning whether the
city is risky in itself or if certain types of people choose to live
in the city because they are predisposed to risky behavior. If
they moved out of the city, they might still be more likely to
die.
“The central city, as contrasted with the suburbs and
rural areas, attracts to itself people, who are in high risk
categories because of health behaviors such as smoking,
drinking and nutrition,” says Charles Longino, professor of
sociology at Wake Forest University, in Winston-Salem, N.C.,
commenting on the study.
“They contain higher proportions of people with high
stress levels, frustrated ambitions and fewer personal
resources,” he adds. “How many of these factors would
change if they moved to rural areas? It may not be location
but the people in those locations that is key to understand
these findings.”
More Research Necessary
House says that alcohol and smoking contribute 10 percent
to 15 percent of the 125 percent increased likelihood of
premature death, but risky behavior cannot explain the other
105 percent to 110 percent.
“Historically, cities were unsafe places to live because of
poor sanitation and close living quarters and infection,” says
House. “But that has changed. More study needs to be done
to understand what are the factors that are contributing to
this higher risk.” |
