Patterns In Data Realization: Maps Depicting Social Ills Look Eerily Familiar

Update (8/27/13): 
The website PornHub has just released a trove of data on America's porn habits. I couldn't help but notice that, once again, it's THAT MAP. I have added the map to the bottom of this previously-published post.

I'm fascinated by data realizations in map form. They say a picture's worth a thousand words.

I'm not going to make any statements about cause and effect, as we all know that correlation does not imply causation. But there certainly is much to be gleaned from correlation.

The below map has been making the rounds recently. It depicts the largest participating religious groups by county in the United States -- basically which religions are most represented in each county.

As fascinating as it is, it probably doesn't come as much of a surprise:

See that large swath of red across the South? That's the Bible Belt. It has a lot in common with many other maps (some of which have been discussed here before).

Here's a map depicting life expectancies for females, by county:

And here's the same for males:

Here we have a map of religiosity in America, with the darker green depicting the most religious areas:

Here we have a map depicting well-being in America. The lighter areas indicate those areas in which residents report a lower sense of well-being.

Here we have a map depicting poverty in the US. Darker portions of the map indicate higher rates of poverty.

In the below map, we can see the divorce rates for men by state (darker colors indicate the highest rates of divorce):

Here we have the same map for women:

The following colorful map depicts the state of same-sex marriage in America. The darker red states are those which are most hostile towards gay-marriage (see key).

And here we have teen birth rates:

Noticing a pattern here?

Here we have a map of active hate groups:

The following map shows the treatment of evolution in schools, by state:

How about the states accepting abstinence education funds (those in orange denied federal abstinence education funds)?

What about high school diplomas?

And here we have the 2008 presidential election red state/blue state map:

Here's a map showing which states spend the most time on PornHub, the third largest porn video site on the internet. Could it be that the most religious, most conservative, most anti-gay, most anti-evolution, most pro-abstinence education states are also the states spending the most time viewing hardcore pornography?

Again, there are many, many factors that play into each of these maps. There are certainly many complex correlations and causations (and some factors perpetuate others). For example, we know that areas of high poverty will likely (for obvious reasons) experience less well-being, lower rates of education, and lower life expectancies.

The religious and political correlations, however, are more curious.

Do lower levels of well-being and lower life expectancies cause higher rates of religiosity?

Are blue-leaning states more likely to deny evolution? Or are evolution-deniers more likely to vote conservative?

Does abstinence education lead to higher teen pregnancy rates? Or do high teen pregnancy rates lead to more abstinence education?

Are hate groups more likely to be comprised of religious conservatives?

Do lower rates of high school graduates play into higher rates of religious conservatism?

Would an increase in graduation levels decrease the number of religious conservatives, evolution denialists, and hate groups?

Is it offensive to ask these questions? If so, why?

Do you have the answers? Please share.

Bryan Fischer's Christian Approach To Health Care: Hospitals, Turn Away The Poor

Another day, another batshit quote from the AFA's Bryan Fischer.

In a blog post on the AFA website, Fischer serves up some ideas on fixing Obamacare. The post is titled, Bringing down health care costs so easy a caveman could do it.

Apparently, Fischer is not aware that Neanderthals actually showed "a deep seated sense of compassion."

Fischer writes:

People need medical care, you will say. Right. People need to eat, too. How long would a grocer stay in business if he was required to offer food to everyone who walked in the door regardless of their ability to pay? He’d be broke in a week, and then nobody would have food.

In the very next paragraph, Fischer actually states the following:

The American people, because of the spirit of Christianity, are the most generous people on earth.

There you have it. Bryan Fischer is not only a terrible human being. As I've stated over and over, he is also the world's least self-aware.

Backsliding Life Expectancies: New Findings, Same Old Maps

Newly released research by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) at the University of Washington shows that women are dying earlier than they were a generation ago.  The research also shows that the United States is falling behind many more healthier nations -- Japan and Canada, for instance, are enjoying significant gains in life expectancy every year.  The maps that accompany the research, however, may not be so surprising.

Dr. Christopher Murray, IHME Director and paper co-author, stated: “Despite the fact that the US spends more per capita than any other nation on health, eight out of every 10 counties are not keeping pace in terms of health outcomes. That’s a staggering statistic.”

The IHME's research suggests that the main culprits are obesity, tobacco use, and other preventable risk factors, with people in Appalachia, the Deep South, and Northern Texas living the shortest lives.

Nationwide, women fare more poorly than men. The researchers found that women in 1,373 counties – about 40% of US counties – fell more than five years behind the nations with the best life expectancies. Men in about half as many counties – 661 total – fell that far.

Black men and women have lower life expectancies than white men and women in all counties. Life expectancy for black women ranges from 69.6 to 82.6 years, and for black men, from 59.4 to 77.2 years. In both cases, no counties are ahead of the international frontier, and some are more than 50 years behind. The researchers were not able to analyze other race categories because of low population levels in many counties.

Below are snapshots illustrating the findings.

These maps may look strikingly familiar. It is difficult to pinpoint exactly where America's health, education, class, sense of well-being, political ideologies, and religious beliefs begin and end, or exactly how they influence one another. But we can't underestimate the degree to which these things affect one another, or how intricately, and uniquely, they are woven into the realities of American life.

I can tell you that I'm getting pretty tired of seeing that same map over and over again.

Religion and Well-Being

The New York Times has just published an interactive map detailing the well-being of Americans, according to a 3-year poll conducted by Gallup.  The map provides an overview of well-being, by congressional district, and can be manipulated to show individual criteria that Gallop used to create their composite.  Among the individual categories are: obesity, stress, exercise, job satisfaction, depression, diabetes, nighttime safety, and inadequate food. 

Anyone with an interest in national polls and state-by-state comparisons, will notice that the maps revealed by the Gallup Well-Being poll have a lot in common with some other maps related to the American mindset.

For starters, here is the composite map detailing Well-Being in America. The darker states are those reporting a higher well-being index, whereas the lighter states are those reporting a lesser sense of well-being.

Now let's take a look at a map illustrating the results of another Gallop poll from 2009 which identified the most religious states in America. The darker states are the most religious, whereas the lightest states are the least religious.

Although the maps are not identical, one can clearly identify the Southeast US as being, by far, the most religious areas of America.  A quick look back to the map of American Well-being, we can clearly identify the Southeast as being the front-runner when it comes to a lack of perceived well-being. 

Another map of interest is a breakdown of the 2008 presidential election results. 

Again, we see some similarities.  Almost all of the states defined by the Gallup religion poll as being "Most religious" or "More religious" went to McCain in the 2008 election.  And with the exception of North Carolina, all states that were defined as "Most Religious" went to McCain.  The very same states with the lowest sense of well-being.  This map, although not an indicator of well-being, does raise some interesting questions, since a ballot often provide insight into the wants, needs, and hopes of the electorate.

Or how about poverty?

While there are countless ways to slice and dice the data provided by polls, surveys, the census, or election results, the correlation between religiosity and well-being, poverty, and political ideology is hard to ignore.  And certainly, just as we know that no state is truly a red state or a blue state (they are actually different shades of purple), we know that there are certainly pockets of highly religious people in less-religious states, and vice versa.  I  am quite aware that I have picked only a few maps here for comparison, and that there are many others out there that may tell other stories, but these came to my mind instantly upon viewing the New York Times Well-Being maps.  But looking over these maps it's hard not to ask some of the following questions:

Are people more religious when they are less happy (or lacking in their sense of well-being)? Or, conversely, are people less happy because they live in more religious areas of the country?

We see that conservatives tend to be concentrated in more religious states, and that is not surprising.  Yet, when we look at the well-being index, one might ask why are those who are less healthy and poorer supporting ideologies that are largely against health care reform and universal coverage?  (One might argue that supporting the conservative, religious values of conservative candidates is more important to these folks than supporting the less religious candidate who wants to provide assistance.)

Why are some of our least religious states like New Hampshire, Washington, Connecticut, Vermont, and Alaska reporting some of the higher instances of well-being?  (North Dakota and Utah are the outliers here, as high well-being indexes and high religiosity -- high concentrations of Lutherans and Mormons, respectively.)

If we were to look elsewhere in the world, we would find that the top four happiest countries in the world, according to Gallup, are Denmark, Finland, Norway, Sweden. Also according to Gallup data, Sweden, Denmark and Norway were the second, third, and fourth least religious states in the world (Estonia beat them all).

Sociologists have long theorized that, as societies modernize, they become more secularized.  Many scholars state that, as societies learn to answer life's mysteries through the advancement of science and the gaining of knowledge, the need for religion decreases.  This is certainly an area of fierce debate, but as we continue to pore over the expanding ocean of data, we will continue to ask questions about religion's relationship to our well-being.