Great Depression & mortality rates

[Murphy101]

I have heard many people saying that SIP is worse bc it will cause more loss of life due to causing another Great Depression. I don’t agree with that reasoning but maybe this will ease some of those fears.

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/great-depression-had-little-effect-on-death-rates-46713514/?fbclid=IwAR2rV9P7qT8aQY3_2e7F9lfm4pvzNPWMGVN6akYYKvAEZG1cuzTbU0vq4Z8#.XqHL_OJHa9Q.facebook

[lulalu]

I think a wide spread depression has many side effects beyond just death. 

I also would be interested to see if they took age into account. My great-grandpa wrote an autobiography on notebook paper. It is such a treasure! Anyways I read through it, and he told about neighbors he shared eggs with and how children died in the family from hunger. I think he said they lost 3, and the wife kept having miscarriages. 

I have thought about this as I haven't been able to do much else.... I think during the Great Depression more people had access to and were legally able to have chickens, large gardens, goats. And now we have so many who have nothing to provide for themselves. In my home state it is illegal to buy milk directly from a farmer. 

My conclusion, is that only time can tell what  a depression will do in our day. 

[Murphy101]

32 minutes ago, lulalu said:

I think a wide spread depression has many side effects beyond just death. 

I also would be interested to see if they took age into account. My great-grandpa wrote an autobiography on notebook paper. It is such a treasure! Anyways I read through it, and he told about neighbors he shared eggs with and how children died in the family from hunger. I think he said they lost 3, and the wife kept having miscarriages. 

I have thought about this as I haven't been able to do much else.... I think during the Great Depression more people had access to and were legally able to have chickens, large gardens, goats. And now we have so many who have nothing to provide for themselves. In my home state it is illegal to buy milk directly from a farmer. 

My conclusion, is that only time can tell what  a depression will do in our day. 

That was partly the ending conclusion of the research too. That how the government responds to a financial crisis determines how badly off the people are.

And 2020 is not 1930.

We have vaccines, vitamins, cleaner water for most of us, we are more aware of healthy practices and safety measures. A crazy number of deaths were due to things nearly unheard of now. Car deaths due to no seatbelts. Miscarriages were more common for lots of reasons. Like RH factor. I know several families that wouldn’t have more than 1 kid if it wasn’t for RH factor testing and treatment. My husband would not have lived past age 6 bc they didn’t have insulin for type 1 diabetics. STDs also caused miscarriages and worse.

And keep in mind, what is illegal and what is enforced will flat out change if it gets that bad. I don’t care what the local law is about chickens, if people are hungry and can’t get it at the store, no one is going to call the cops on you for having chickens. And even if they did, worst case is all you’d have to do is give the cop some eggs to take home and that problem will go away. You’d be more likely to have your chickens stolen than reported. 

Because of the depression I and none of my kids drink milk. My grandmas had goats and a dairy a cow and they rarely drank the milk. Even if they did it was very thin bc it was only the skim milk. Because it was a huge source of limited income! They sold it all as butter and cream and milk. The “house” my dad grew up in didn’t even have indoor plumbing until I was in 7th grade. None of them drank milk growing up. It was a rare treat to have it warm over oats or granola.  Same for my mom. And they never bought it for us kids either. And dh and I early in our marriage and child raising were so tight on funds that I had to choose between actual food or drinks so we never bought anything to drink. We drank water. For a brief time we were on WIC and that gave us a ridiculous amount of milk and juice that we couldn’t consume it all and it was nearly exclusively used for cooking and when company came over for their coffee. It wasn’t until about 10 years ago that I ever bought cold cereal for breakfasts and thus bought a lot of milk to pour over it.

No one is going to die or even suffer a nutrient deficiency for lack of milk to drink. Most of Asia survives just fine. 🙂

[Arcadia]

I thought the opinion that SIP would lead to more deaths than Great Depression was due to isolation causing attempted suicides rather than just financial reasons. 

My parents generation found financial upheavals easier to bear with “social gatherings” to talk and whine. Now they need to “group video chat”.

[EmseB]

Most of what people did to survive or get by during the great depression is now illegal or heavily restricted or needs a license that costs $$$. I don't by any means think there was some kind of neighborhood utopia going on during that time, but most goods you want to sell or services you might want to provide if you lose your "regular" job these days are pretty well restricted, ostensibly for safety and hygiene. If you want to make extra money selling eggs or haircuts or kids clothing or whatever, it's not really legal to just start doing that. I've lived several places where backyard chickens aren't allowed at all and HOAs restrict things like vegetable gardens and clotheslines that might save people a little money here or there.

I do wonder if local governments run out of money and people get fed up enough if those rules and permitting and licensing will really be enforced.

ETA: should have read the whole thread before replying!

Edited April 24, 2020 by EmseB

[Sneezyone]

23 minutes ago, Arcadia said:

I thought the opinion that SIP would lead to more deaths than Great Depression was due to isolation causing attempted suicides rather than just financial reasons. 

My parents generation found financial upheavals easier to bear with “social gatherings” to talk and whine. Now they need to “group video chat”.

We will have to see just how accurate that is. Even my SIL who lives alone in NY is SIP at a friend’s place for the duration. Most people are home with family so not isolated at all, in fact, they may be really connecting for the first time in a long time. I do not discount the people who are SIP with abusers or the increased domestic violence incidents but I don’t think there’s evidence that those things have led to the kind of widespread violence and death that have been suggested. Certainly I haven’t seen/heard of lots of drive-bys, schools shootings, multi-car pileups, or workplace violence incidents lately.

[Arcadia]

13 minutes ago, Sneezyone said:

We will have to see just how accurate that is. Even my SIL who lives alone in NY is SIP at a friend’s place for the duration. Most people are home with family so not isolated at all, in fact, they may be really connecting for the first time in a long time. 

Here the elderly who would usually babysit grandkids or neighbors’ kids are in SIP alone or with their elderly spouse. That’s because they are considered high risk and health officers advised not sending kids to grandparents.

Edited April 24, 2020 by Arcadia

[Sneezyone]

29 minutes ago, Arcadia said:

Here the elderly who would usually babysit grandkids or neighbors’ kids are in SIP alone or with their elderly spouse. That’s because they are considered high risk and health officers advised not sending kids to grandparents.

I don’t know that this population represents most people but I acknowledge isolation may be more difficult for them.

[Bootsie]

I would be careful regarding the interpretation of the results.  This paper looks at the relationship between changes in bank suspensions across states and the causes of deaths in those states.  It is looking to see if State A had an increase in bank suspensions in 1932, did it have an increase in deaths that year, etc.  Basically, it shows little statistical link between those two things.  Note that bank suspensions peaked in 1933.  So, if there were negative health consequences in 1934-1937, they were being viewed as the authors of worse health during better times.  

Also, the paper does not study anything regarding the relationship between how governments responded to the Great Depression and health issues.  In the conclusion the authors say that improving mortality rates may be due to other interventions, that are beyond the scope of the paper.  

Here are some actual charts from the study:

 

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