Why are people in big cities generally much healthier?

[PxD]

@BearWithMe Have you found any data on mortality by season in cities versus rural areas? Mortality spikes in cold weather, particularly amongst the elderly, and I wonder if density of population and heat generating technology keeps cities warmer in colder weather.

I guess this wouldn’t explain differences in places like Africa or Latin America though.

 

[BearWithMe]

The seasonality of deaths doesn't differ very much between rural and metropolitan areas. There is correlation between average temperature and death rates in many places, though.

 

[ebs]

Probably because of better and faster access to healthcare will be one of the aspects. Difficult to believe that living in a hectic and stressful envitonment like a big city is better for your health than living in nature. Then again the changes of getting an accident or ill in the middle nowhere gives a much lesser change of survival than in the city. Otherwise it must be the fight or flight response that wants your body wanting to stay alive as the other reason.

 

[BearWithMe]

...

 

[Gustav3Y]

I have absolutely never, ever heard of someone regretting having their children.

I have.
Also you have to think about how easy such person ca be attached by people around.
Besides most people do not talk about their most intimate regrets, look at the person on the forum talking about his penis regret, he got cornered really quickly.

 

[BearWithMe]

This is super anecdotal but there are places where there are literally no healthy looking elderly people. You can spend hours walking around and you will find no one.

Everyone over 50 is barely walking, obese but in really weird way (they looks puffy almost like they are "inflated", don't know how to describe it), they are bald or strongly balding (even women), their skin is weirdly pale, and everyone seems to have a small dog (which hints that many of them might be lonely).

These places are usually on the outskirts of big cities, but they are close to agriculture at the same time. Big city from one side, fields from the other.

Interestingly, in places like that, there are also a lot of young homeless people. But it doesn't really makes sense because there are no rich people to give them stuff, like in city centers.

 

[Sitaruîm]

Just have read a bunch of other studies from all around the world.

People in big cities are healthier just about anywhere in the world - in the US, Europe, Asia and Africa.

The only exception appears to be Northen Ireland. For some reason, people living in Northern Irish rural areas have significantly (22%) lower mortality than people living in cities.

What could be so different about Irish countryside and / or cities?

A lot of dairy/suckler cow farming in Ireland, maybe there is not as much monocrop as is commonly found in agricultural areas elsewhere

 

[BearWithMe]

A lot of dairy/suckler cow farming in Ireland, maybe there is not as much monocrop as is commonly found in agricultural areas elsewhere

Wow!! Northen Ireland is really total outlier when it comes to area used to grow crops - there is almost none!

Mind blown.

I need to find more countries like that and their death rates / health statistics

 

[BearWithMe]

New Zealand also have almost zero arable land and rural people are doing better in almost any health metric than urban people

 

[PolishSun]

cities have high EMF levels, so I guess that is not dangerous.

 

[BearWithMe]

cities have high EMF levels, so I guess that is not dangerous.

I'd rather put it like that: Agriculture chemicals and poverty are probably much more dangerous than EMF.

But also keep in mind that these are pre-4G/5G data. We don't know how 4G/5G rollout will affect these statistics. It might completely flip everything.

 

[BearWithMe]

Or to be more accurate: There is *something* in the rural areas that's much more damaging than EMF, air pollution, noise and sedentary lifestyle combined.

I really wish we knew for sure what it is. But there are a couple of things suggesting it might have something to do with agriculture.