Comments on: The Geography of Smoking

By: Creative Class » Blog Archive » The Geography of Obesity - Creative Class

Wed, 25 Nov 2009 14:01:56 +0000

[...] (BMI) over 30 which the CDC classifies as “obese.”A week or so ago, I looked at the relationship between smoking and a variety of economic, social, and health factors. With a helpful analytical hand from [...]

By: Michael Wells

Michael Wells — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 23:07:03 +0000

Good trends between the three maps, no state backsliding. California and New Jersey being so low compared to states around them is surprising.

The Appalachian line I noticed in the happiness map is mirrored here. I remember visiting my uncle Chester, a retired coal miner in Southeastern Ohio, when he was dieing of black lung and emphysema. He was bedridden, on oxygen, and chain smoking. That part of the country seems to still be 20 years behind on so many fronts.

I wonder what the data would be like for cities vs rural. I suspect smoking is lower in Portland than Eastern Oregon, for example.

By: Charlotta

Charlotta — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 20:20:54 +0000

Yes, you’re right. There was a mistake in the original merge of the data (my fault!) but thanks for pointing it out. This has been taken care of now, and the scatters should be OK.

As for the comment on religious/church participation — If we correlate smoking rate with the share of the population who says religion is important in their life, we get a positive and significant coefficient of 0.472** (Utah is the extreme outlier).

By: J.D. Hammond

J.D. Hammond — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 16:22:52 +0000

Interesting graphics, but haven’t you switched the smoking rates for Virginia and West Virginia in the scatter plots?

By: Creative Advertizing on Buildings | Designopoint

Creative Advertizing on Buildings | Designopoint — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 15:59:21 +0000

[...] Creative Class » Blog Archive » The Geography of … [...]

By: Campus Entrepreneurship

Campus Entrepreneurship — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 15:16:02 +0000

Interesting stuff. thanks for throwing this together. Given Utah’s low rate I’d be interested to see smoking vs. religious/church participation. nice work guys.