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Comment by shasta | Hacker News Reader

It would be more interesting to limit the comparison to those who die of causes other than, say, gunshot wounds. It would also be interesting to see a comparison of health, rather than just length of life.

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The real issue is child morbidity. There are plenty of old people in most poor countries but if 10+% of the population dies before age 5 the average life expectancy get's far shorter.

I think you mean mortality, not morbidity.

Sorry, I meant morbidity, but I should have been more clear. Childhood disease(morbidity) leads to a high infant/child mortality rate in poor countries due to poor nutrition, sanitation, and heath care. IMO, it's better to think of these deaths as a symptom than a cause.

For comparison US death rate in the 0 - 5 range is really low. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Causes_of_death_by_age_gro...

PS: Nutrition is huge: According to Jean Ziegler (the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food for 2000 to March 2008), mortality due to malnutrition accounted for 58% of the total mortality in 2006: "In the world, approximately 62 millions people, all causes of death combined, die each year. In 2006, more than 36 millions died of hunger or diseases due to deficiencies in micronutrients"[4].

According to the WHO information it appears that deaths due to intentional injuries are relatively low in comparison to most other forms of disease and illness in Afghanistan:

http://www.who.int/healthinfo/global_burden_disease/estimate...

Even when looking at Males 15-59. Though it should be noted these numbers are from 2004. Additionally, I really have no sense of how accurate these numbers are.

War, especially when it lasts for a generation, causes a lot more than gun shot wounds.

I agree. It's horrible and it directly affects health and disease. I don't know how to quantify that, at least with respect to this discussion. I was replying specifically to the parent comment and whether intentional injuries were skewing the mortality numbers.

I'd have guessed that people from US and Canada are mainly of North European descent, and so much more likely to have adapted to a colder climate. To be honest you'd probably have to compare Afghan people to Southern Italians, and unsurprising enough, the difference would be much smaller.

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