Over at Nationhood Lab, the research project and data journalism portal I lead at Salve Regina University’s Pell Center, I write about research we recently published in the Journal of Cardiopulmonary Rehabilitation and Prevention parsing disability rates across the American Nations regional cultures.
The study used county-level data for 2021 from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control to examine rates of self-reported disabilities, including those related to hearing, vision, cognition, mobility, self-care and independent living and found significant differences in age-adjusted disability rates across U.S. regional cultures. The rate in the Deep South (32.1% of the population) was about sixth higher than in New Netherland (23.4%) or Left Coast (25.4%) In the First Nation section of Alaska, an alarming 39.2% of the adult population is disabled.
This one of ten academic papers published or accepted over the last nine months from a collaboration between myself, two public health researchers –Ross Arena of the University of Illinois – Chicago and HealthPartners Institute president Nicolaas Pronk — and a rotating cast of specialists in various sub-fields. The papers — including two just published by the American Medical Journal — and data analysis at Nationhood Lab have , and revealed similar county-level geographic patterns for a wide range of phenomena, including Covid-19 vaccinations and deaths, deadly gun violence, life expectancy, diabetes, obesity and physical inactivity.
I wrote about our work on obesity, diabetes, and physical inactivity — published in Progress in Cardiovascular Diseases and Current Problems in Cardiology — previously here.
COLIN WOODARD is a New York Times bestselling author, historian and award-winning journalist. He is the author of seven books that have been translated into a dozen foreign languages and inspired an NBC television drama. He is currently Director of Nationhood Lab at the Pell Center for International Relations and Public Affairs at Salve Regina University. As State and National Affairs Writer at Maine's Portland Press Herald, he won a 2012 George Polk Award and was a finalist for a 2016 Pulitzer Prize. His work has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, Politico, The Economist, Smithsonian and dozens of other major publications.