Bill Davenhall: Your health depends on where you live
www.ted.com Where you live It impacts your health as much as diet and genes do, but it’s not part of your medical records. At TEDMED, Bill Davenhall shows how overlooked government geo-data (from local heart-attack rates to toxic dumpsite info) can mesh with mobile GPS apps to keep doctors in the loop. Call it “geo-medicine.”
Does the chart on heart attacks reflect population density also?
More people means more heart attacks
@roidroid Yes, because 30 years of experience in data analysis is not good enough…. do some research next time please.
Alternatively we could just stop dumping toxic crap into the air. Most people don’t have the means to move across the country to escape pollution.
i think i’d take it more seriously if this talk was by a DOCTOR Bill Davenhall.
Otherwise i’m inclined to just write it off as quackery.
How do i find this map online?
how do i find maps of other places in on the globe online?
I can imagine that a lot of information could be gathered about a lot of things. Right now we have a drought and the dams are low. How can i know the quality of my drinking water through this? (one example) Can we know how much living in the LA area for 40 years has effected me and how much moving away from LA has helped?
I have a lot of questions How do i get any answers ??
Although environment can play some role in health, what’s far more important is the issue of smoking, exercise and diet. Smoking is the most preventable cause of death in the US. Avoiding 2nd-hand smoke also important. Obesity is a huge problem, as is the lack of exercise. In the grand scheme of things, except for those individuals with high job-related exposure to gases, etc, personal choices on diet, exercise, smoking and substance abuse have a far greater impact on health. – an MD
Health insurance has many bad points. Hopefully for you Obama will get his social health bill passed.
5:11–5:16 you can see the real Patch Adams turn around and face the audience
Hey genius! what about the life expectancy of Palestinians living under Jewish occupation or other crimes against humanity!
So they take a geograpical history? The only people I see benefitting from this are the health insurance companies.
Be a lot better if they had a questions and answer section at the end of each of these lectures.
Once again, pretty much anything, (e.g. distilled water) is “technically toxic”. You can’t just make abstraction of dosage/context.
The question here is whether or not it makes sense for the speaker to list CO2 from traffic as a significant (or even noticeable) environmental health risk.
“What I fail to understand is why you are putting so much effort into arguing about it?”
- Maybe we’re just both insane.
You didn’t ask about the others. Yes, they are bad, but CO2 is technically toxic. It is a fact. That is what you seemed to have a problem with so that is what I explained.
What I fail to understand is why you are putting so much effort into arguing about it?
If you spend hours on the highway breathing car exhaust, you have a long list of chemicals that are ACTUALLY dangerous at tiny levels that are going to kill you long before CO2 has any noticeable effect on your health. Why not list those chemicals, if you accept that they should worry you tons more?
The EPA and air quality control people only took an interest on CO2 because of global warming, and that’s the reason why they classify CO2 as a polutant. There just isn’t a real health concern.
Connect the dots for yourself – get an idea on how this app could work with different types of health data – you can put in your actual place history – put “geomedicine GIS” into your favorite search engine.
And, as you increase the concentration of CO2 in the air, you decrease the efficacy of the diffusion in your lungs… ie, your body is less able to get rid of CO2 in the blood. It may not be as deadly as carbonmonoxide, but it does stress the body and can be a contributing factor to overall poor health. Especially in combination with all the other wonderful things a car spits out while idling in a traffic jam.
“We’re not talking about breathing large quantities of CO2. You can get dizzy by breathing pretty much any gas…”
You obviously haven’t tried it then… it does not “make you dizzy”. It gives you a massive headache, severe chest pain and there is a strong chance it’ll make you throw up. Your body is desperate to get rid of the stuff for a reason.
As for your 0.06 numbers, that may be overall, but its way low for someone sitting on the highway.
That’s besides the point.
We’re not talking about breathing large quantities of CO2. You can get dizzy by breathing pretty much any gas (including pure O2).
We’re talking about small increases in the concentration of CO2 in cities. (from say 0.04% to 0.06%). Which are negligible compared to, say, the difference in concentration in a crowded indoor space.
very true!
Agreed. All though not correct for children of smoking parents…
LOL.
Go the the EPA site – look up TRI – you can check at the zip code level.
“Along with the tobacco, meat and booze companies.”
Similar idea, though different emphasis. Chemical and oil companies produce products that effect all whether they consume the product or not. My point is that by offering the product at all, they own everyone.
Tobacco, booze and the like however, are consumer choices. They do add to the health risks of the people that consume them, but not many others… at least not to the same extent. A tax for subsidy makes more sense in their case.
Have you ever stuck your head in a cooler full of dry ice and taken a deep breath?
I would like to point out though, that the talks orriginally presented on TED (dot) com were closer to 30+ minutes. Most of the presentations I’ve seen since they started posting to Youtube have been somewhat disappointing… and somewhat less revolutionary than the material I was used to seeing a few years ago.
I recognize what you’re saying, but the stuff that makes it here has been a bit lack luster compared to their older videos.
Err, they are usually about 20 minutes long. That aside I was pointing out that the idea isn’t very “world changing” so I was hoping him to bring it down well with good science. Data doesn’t have to be boring as people at TED have shown time and time again.