Cool Data Alert: Health Inequality Project

I saw these graphs on the relationship between household income and life expectancy a few years ago and was blown away. Yes, the difference in life expediencies between the richest and poorest men in the U.S. (15 years!) is startling, but what was more surprising (for lack of a better word) to me is that there are such noticeable differences in the middle of the distribution--where I am, where my friends and family are, where you are. I would love to learn more about what is driving these differences. Is it something that you can buy with money? Can it all be explained by good behaviors that happen to be correlated with income? Just plain genetics?

Luckily, the Health Inequality Project team has made really cool data available to help us learn more. UConn graduate students, if you are interested in using these data and need an adviser/committee member, come find me.