But the orks are NOT concentrated in the slums. Orks are fairly uniformly distributed amongst the metroplex at around 15 to 20% of the population. Then notable exceptions are Redmond, Snohomish and Everett districts where humans far outnumber metahumans. Actually, Humans far outnumber the metahumans in all of the districts but more so up north. So any environmental impact on orks is going to hit humans even harder.
According to SR4A, p71, Orks and Trolls are statistically more likely to be SINless than other metatypes. That means they're statistically more likely to be living in the slums and barrens.
In the 19th century, before modern healthcare, rich families had an infant mortality rate of 80-100 per thousand. In the slums infant deaths were closer to 300 per thousand. Given that Barrens families would probably have nearly as little to work with, medically speaking, as 19th century slum-dwellers, 25%-30% of all Ork deaths being younger than the age of 5 would not be unlikely.
And that was before things like Ghouls wanted to eat you.
Exactly my point.
I figure any increase in availability in medical care among the truly impoverished since the 19th century (Pediatrician Magician, anyone?), which is
not a given in a Dystopia like Shadowrun, is more than offset by the increase in the lethality of other factors.
So, for simplicity, lets say 25%-30% of all Orks die right
at age 5, that means that in a population with an average lifespan of 40, that's an extra 11-15 years for the remaining 70%-75% of the population... and that's assuming that if they survive past age 5 they all live until they die of natural causes in their early-to-mid-50s.
The fact that a good portion of that 25%-30% would die well before 5, plus violent death along the way for those that survive to adulthood would probably push the average Ork's
actual lifespan up somewhere closer to the late-50s, if not early-60s, if he manages to make it to "Natural Causes".
Still well short of a normal human, who can make it to 90s or better under the same "ideal" conditions, which is appropriate for the fluff.