eAlert Mon, 04/11/2016 - 12:00 33a9286e-4a6e-4d62-b309-f0332e6325e4

<p>Nine of the 10 states with the highest mortality rates are below the Mason-Dixon line, where life expectancy is two to four years shorter than the national average. In a new <em>Wall Street Journal  </em>"Experts" blog post, Commonwealth Fund President David Blumenthal, M.D., looks at the reasons for the health divide in the U.S., including lower incomes and levels of education in the South and higher-than-average rates of smoking and obesity.</p><p>Compounding these issues, he writes, are higher barriers to health care services. Thirteen percent of Southerners lack health insurance, compared with less than 9 percent in the rest of the country.</p>

http://www.commonwealthfund.org/publications/newsletters/ealerts/2016/apr/how-health-divides-the-north-and-south-in-the-us Read the post