from Hacker News

African Americans Have the Highest Rate of Fire Deaths and Injuries (2021)

by frasermarlow on 5/24/24, 1:36 AM with 23 comments

• by vector_spaces on 5/24/24, 2:49 AM

  African Americans are more likely to be lower income, lower income folks are more likely to live in housing that is not up to code (missing sprinklers, detectors, fire escapes, and run by slumlords who simply don't care in ways that would likely be shocking to most decent people who haven't lived near the poverty line), where many, many people live in a single unit to make it affordable -- or because e.g. an uncle just got out of prison or someone you know is having some kind of emergency. When you're poor, you have a lot of emergencies and you know a lot of people having emergencies. Someone in your network is always having an emergency.

  And yes, when you're making $9 an hour and your rent is 2/3 of your income, buying batteries for your chirping smoke detector is not top of mind.

  This is all a byproduct of centuries of brutal economic warfare.

  > "These risk factors appear to be related to socioeconomic status of the victim to a greater extent than one’s race," Onwuachi-Saunders wrote. (from the article linked below)

  But it turns out that in the US socioeconomic status and race are closely linked, at least in the aggregate.

  https://www.northjersey.com/in-depth/news/2022/02/03/fire-in...

• by diogenescynic on 5/24/24, 2:45 AM

  Is it because they don't change the batteries on smoke alarms? I also saw that as the cause for African Americans having poor sleep in a recent study: https://sahanjournal.com/health/sleep-science-black-insomnia...

• by samatman on 5/24/24, 3:31 AM

  Seems to hold for vehicular accidents as well. https://injuryfacts.nsc.org/motor-vehicle/road-users/dispari...