Specifically, controlling for their own income, groups that are poorer relative to others who live in the same state are at higher risk of dying. The relationship was especially strong for working-age black men. Many questions remain, Paxson said. For example, incomes of others in an area can affect the availability of services and goods. Future research will focus on the causes of death and issues such as social isolation and psychosocial stress, she said, noting that a growing body of evidence points to the link between psychosocial stress and health problems.
Researchers plan to do a similar analysis at the city level.
Paxson believes the results will be even more informative. He traces how hearing voices increasingly became associated with trickery or even insanity, and how the learned made advances in anatomy, acoustic technology and medical psychology to debunk what they saw as pious frauds. Enlightenment-era thinkers were threatened by the power that immediate revelation possessed. In order to establish a civil society governed by reason and not religious authorities, they placed sharp limits on divine speech. It is an argument that continues today.