Civil war and the effect on life expectancy: El Salvador
Monday, April 09, 2007
There are some interesting data sets on google's
gapminder flash tool--not many, but enough to play around with it.
Out of curiosity I plotted the US and El Salvador's life expectancy against time.
If you note, between 1972 and 1982, there was a clear decrease in life expectancy in El Salvador--I'd almost say alarming.
(Click on the image to enlarge.)
What happened? Were older people dying younger than expected? Is that what is going on here?
I don't think so.
What the data could actually be telling us is that younger people were dying (or being killed) during the civil war thus pulling the life expectancy average down. It is a
known fact that during the late 70s and early 80s it wasn't uncommon for teenagers to be killed by either side.
It was a sad trend, and clearly one that stopped when the peace accords were signed between both sides in 1992. The question remains: which side won?
I also wanted to see how neighboring countries fared during that period. Take a look:
(Click on the image to enlarge.)
I think the picture speaks for itself.
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