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US Near Bottom In Life Expectancy In Developed World
Hugh Pickens writes "Louise Radnofsky reports that a study by the National Research Council and Institute of Medicine has found U.S. life expectancy ranks near the bottom of 17 affluent countries. The U.S. is at or near the bottom in nine key areas of health: infant mortality and low birth weight; injuries and homicides; teenage pregnancies and sexually transmitted infections; prevalence of HIV and AIDS; drug-related deaths; obesity and diabetes; heart disease; chronic lung disease; and disability. Americans fare worse than people in other countries even when the analysis is limited to non-Hispanic whites and people with relatively high incomes and health insurance, nonsmokers, or people who are not obese. The report notes that average life expectancy for American men, at 75.6 years, was the lowest among the 17 countries and almost four years shorter than for Switzerland, the best-performing nation. American women's average life expectancy is 80.8 years, the second-lowest among the countries and five years shorter than Japan's, which had the highest expectancy. 'The [U.S.] health disadvantage is pervasive — it affects all age groups up to age 75 and is observed for multiple diseases, biological and behavioral risk factors, and injuries,' say the report's authors. The authors offered a range of possible explanations for Americans' worse health and mortality, including social inequality, limited availability of contraception for teenagers, community designs that discourage physical activity such as walking, air pollution as well as individual behaviors such as high calorie consumption. The report's authors were particularly critical of the availability of guns. 'One behavior that probably explains the excess lethality of violence and unintentional injuries in the United States is the widespread possession of firearms and the common practice of storing them (often unlocked) at home,' reads the report. 'The statistics are dramatic.'"
...let's get real: for the government, the insurance companies, the health care providers, etc, etc, etc, ad eternum...that's a good thing.
The rest of you would be working yourself to death too if you were making $7.25/hr., had no job security or benefits, couldn't afford a hospital stay, and were afraid you would get laid off if you took a vacation. No 3-hour lunches or month-long vacations here. We WORK for a living! Even the relatively affluent can get fired or laid off at the drop of a hat in the USA.
But don't worry. You'll learn what it's like soon enough. Greece has already started. No more free rides, fellow Athenians!
What political party do you join when you don't like Bible-thumpers *or* hippies?
Switzerland tops the list, yet the authors criticize gun availability in the US?
It's already been pointed out that the reason why the United States has "high" infant mortality is that we count ALL live births as a live birth. In some European countries, if the baby dies within a few minutes or a few hours it isn't counted as a live birth and therefore isn't part of the infant mortality numbers. In one country, I don't remember which one, if the baby dies with the first WEEK, it isn't counted as a live birth. So, yes, if you manipulate the numbers and redefine "live" birth, you can end up with a low infant mortality rate. On the other hand, if you count it as a live birth if the baby draws even a single breath or twitches, then your numbers do not mean the same thing.
#1 The United States has the highest incarceration rate in the world and the largest total prison population on earth.
#2 The United States has the highest percentage of obese people in the world.
#3 The United States has the highest divorce rate on the globe by a wide margin.
#4 The United States is tied with the U.K. for the most hours of television watched per person each week.
#5 The United States has the highest rate of illegal drug use on the entire planet.
#6 There are more car thefts in the United States each year than anywhere else in the world by far.
#7 There are more reported rapes in the United States each year than anywhere else in the world.
#8 There are more reported murders in the United States each year than anywhere else in the world.
#9 There are more total crimes in the United States each year than anywhere else in the world.
#10 The United States also has more police officers than anywhere else in the world.
#11 The United States spends much more on health care as a percentage of GDP than any other nation on the face of the earth.
#12 The United States has more people on pharmaceutical drugs than any other country on the planet.
#13 The percentage of women taking antidepressants in America is higher than in any other country in the world.
#14 Americans have more student loan debt than anyone else in the world.
#15 More pornography is created in the United States than anywhere else on the entire globe. Eighty nine percent is made in the U.S.A. and only 11 percent is made in the rest of the world.
#16 The United States has the largest trade deficit in the world every single year. Between December 2000 and December 2010, the United States ran a total trade deficit of 6.1 trillion dollars with the rest of the world, and the U.S. has had a negative trade balance every single year since 1976.
#17 The United States spends 7 times more on the military than any other nation on the planet does. In fact, U.S. military spending is greater than the military spending of China, Russia, Japan, India, and the rest of NATO combined.
#18 The United States has far more foreign military bases than any other country does.
#19 The United States has the most complicated tax system in the entire world.
#20 The U.S. has accumulated the biggest national debt that the world has ever seen and it is rapidly getting worse. Right now, U.S. government debt is expanding at a rate of $40,000 per second.
Switzerland is at the top and has tremendous amounts of gun ownership. Our life expectancy is due to our crappy healthcare system and even worse access to it, high infant mortality, rampant poverty, lack of safety nets, etc. Oh and our obsession with fast food doesn't help either.
obviouslt your agenda forbade you to read:
"even when the analysis is limited to non-Hispanic whites and people with relatively high incomes and health insurance, nonsmokers, or people who are not obese."
This is the kind of analysis I have been wondering about. Since most of the previous studies done in this area don't seem to try to factor thing like the large number of American fat asses or smokers or other choice items. While it appears to do a better job of trying to factor out some of the issues it doesn't look like it manages to do all of them or I might need to read it in more detail. But it looks like there is some good evidence that our health care system does really kind of suck unless you can afford the Mayo Clinic or other premier hospitals.
Time to offend someone
Doesn't the fact that the Swiss have a very high rate of gun ownership and the highest life expectancies negate their (idiotic) hypothesis that guns might account for the lowered life expectancies in the US? The accident rate for guns is actually quite low compared to many other types of accidental death (auto accidents, etc.).
Since when did "scientists" get to editorialize in their research papers and make wild guesses in the closing paragraphs? Oh, but this isn't science is it.....
Urban sprawl, no exercise, a diet loaded with sugar, salt and hormones, and the only people who can afford to see a doctor are the lawyers who just sued them for malpractice.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
18,735 - suicide by firearm
11,493 - murder by firearm
554 - killed from accidental firearm discharge
31,578 - accidental death from poisoning
All of these numbers pale in comparison to this:
108,000 - killed from adverse prescription drug reactions.
Clearly the firearms angle is over stated.We should be banning doctors.
Slashdot's rate-of-post filter: Preventing you from posting too many great ideas at once.
Knowing several people in various states in the US, ranging from middle-aged to old... I'm anything but convinced. It seems to me that compared to Norwegians (and most likely to everyone in Northern Europe) you work harder for longer for less pay, and have less to show for it at the end of your life. I don't think that most people enjoys working 60-80 hours a week, knowing that they can't afford to retire... meaning they will work until they drop dead.
To quote a comment that arose over a Christmas dinner a few years ago; "What do you call retired people in the states?" "Greeters at WalMart."
The plural of "stuff I know" isn't data, but in this case it seems like the data is backing up the stuff I know. You don't "pack more into your years" - you're worn out faster by an system built to benefit the rich, and even the rich seems overall less happy than most people I see over on my end.
Everything in the world is controlled by a small, evil group to which, unfortunately, no one you know belongs.
How can you compare the USA with a population of 350M to Switzerland of 8M, we have CITIES with more people! Now maybe if you compared US states vs Switzerland I guarantee you things would shake out quite differently. Also its very amusing the number one reason they cite is gun violence, this is propaganda pumping the public full of bullshit to pass gun control. Perhaps they should ban clubs and hammers, since more people die every year due them as one report recently found. And then there's the other study that found any time you ban or limit guns violent crimes increase.
Interestingly though (and contrairy to your comment), most of the reasons why life expectancy is lower in the U.S. happens before the age of 50. So the probability of a newborn child to even come to an age of 50 is lower than in any other of the 17 countries. So it's not the last 5 years that are important here (if you ever get 75 in the U.S., your life expectancy is on par with the rest of the countries), it's the deaths occuring before the age of 50 that make the numbers so miserable.
This must be down to the corporate "death squads" who decide who will get treatment and who won't.
If we improve, the author can put us near the bottom of the top 5. Or maybe even near the bottom of the top 2. Perhaps we could even be the last of the first place finishers.
Coding Blog
But that is still less dangerous than swimming pools, yet there is no uproar or outrage over that. Why aren't we implementing swimming pool regulation? Do swimming pool owners really have any business not fencing their pools? Given that the right to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed, we really ought to direct our focus elsewhere.
There's plenty of research, showing that high income inequality will lead to lower life expectancy, and not just among the poor.
The more economically unequal a society becomes, everybody gets more sick, even the 1%.
And it's not just physical health. There is more mental illness the more inequality grows. You know, craziness, like the kind that would make a 20 year-old kid kill his mom and 20 six and seven year-olds.
There are so many measurements of the health of a society that degrade as income inequality grow, it's not surprising that a growing number of very wealthy people are in favor of having their own tax rates go up and the social safety net made stronger. Some are even starting to take better care of their employees at the cost of stock price (the "market" hates it when workers get paid more). Costco is an example of this. Wages go up and employees get better health care and other benefits and the financial elite say, "What a chump. What's wrong with that guy, anyway, is he some kind of fucking commie?" (If you think I'm kidding about this, check out some of the stories about Costco in the Wall Street Journal or on CNBC. The CEO's name is James Sinegal, and he's decided to earn less than $500k. Wall Street hates the dude because they're afraid he's going to start some kind of trend where bonuses go down and then they won't be able to afford that new infinity pool in their houses in St Lucia.)
You are welcome on my lawn.
Most US companies have eliminated carryover of vacation time/PTO. Most companies no longer have the concept of sick time. Your situation is not the norm.
I read Slashdot for the headlines, because the headlines, unlike the articles, are usually original and never duplicated
obviouslt your agenda forbade you to read:
As did yours. Mind explaining how "teen pregnancy" has fuck-all to do with health?
Mental health is still health.
Ever met a pregnant teenager? I have; They tend to be a bit... emotionally unstable.
Keep in mind that 18 and 19 are still part of your teenage years.
Don't be a pedant.
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
That is simply not true for two reasons: First, this is appears to not be peer-reviewed, and thus does not count as "medical research" by any means.
Sorry. no. This is the National Academies of Science. This is pretty much the gold standard of peer review; you really can't do much better than that. And, yes, NAS reports are very extensively peer reviewed.
You're right about this not being "medical research." This is a review. Reviews are not original research, they are summaries of research done by others-- in essence, a review is the peer review of an aggregate of studies.
The report is here: http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=13497
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
... when you have to pay for health service ...
Mind explaining how "teen pregnancy" has fuck-all to do with health? Keep in mind that 18 and 19 are still part of your teenage years.
I'll field this one. "Infants of adolescent mothers are more likely than infants of older mothers to use a variety of health care services that suggest poorer health. A considerable proportion of this greater use seems to be attributable to specific characteristics of mothers, such as socioeconomic characteristics, rather than to an inability that is common among adolescents to promote infant health or to use health care appropriately."
Emphasis mine.
I really think you could have guessed this if you'd thought about it for just a few seconds.
I am not a crackpot.
Ever met a pregnant teenager? I have; They tend to be a bit... emotionally unstable.
And easy lays.
The stories and info posted here are artistic works of fiction and falsehood.
Only fools would take it as fact.
Link to the full 424 page paper is here.
Link to the (probably paywalled) WSJ article is here although the Yahoo version in the summary above appears to be exactly the same.
The analysis could probably be tailored to fit any assertion you wanted to make. A breakdown by state in the US probably reveals significant discrepancies.
And if the UK were split into constituent parts, no US state is likely to be worse than Scotland for general health and life expectancy.
From the summary: "The report notes that average life expectancy for American men, at 75.6 years"
From your link: "Men in Scotland are expected to live for 76 years"
Mind explaining how "teen pregnancy" has fuck-all to do with health?
Teenage parents tend to smoke, drink, and use drugs to a greater degree than their peers. Children born while their mothers are teenagers have significantly lower scores on standardized IQ tests, do poorly in school, and have more health problems than children with older mothers.
But correlation is not causation. If a mother has her first baby while she is a teenager, and has more children later, the later children do just as poorly as the first. So the problem is not that teenagers have children, but that stupid people have children, and having a child while still a teenager happens to be highly correlated with stupidity.
Keep in mind that 18 and 19 are still part of your teenage years.
Keep in mind that having a kid when you are 18 or 19 is usually a pretty stupid thing to do.
If my previous comment is insufficiently clear, MOD PARENT DOWN. It's bad statistics.
"What do you call retired people in the states?" "Greeters at WalMart."
I don't know if all those people are working because they have to. Some may just want to work. I would be quite happy being a greeter at Walmart. It actually sounds like a fun job to me. When you have nothing better to do, why not stand around and smile and say hi to people all day? It beats doing nothing. Even if I am able to retire at 60 there is no way in hell I would stop working. I'd just work less, and not care about money. I know an older couple that is retired. The wife works at an elementary school 20 hours a week. They definitely do not need the money at all. She does it because she loves children and its something for her to do 20 hours a week.
THe BBC article also says Scottish life expectancy increased by seven years over the previous three decades. In the US, that increase was only 4.5 years. That would suggest Scotland has overtaken the United States in that period and is now pulling away. Here's historical US data.
Not this crap again.
About 17 of them do. Your link shows a life expectancy of 80 for women and 76 for men. It doesn't give decimal places, or overall numbers, but 78ish is probably pretty close. According to wikis list of US States life expectance 17 (and DC) below 78. The US as a whole is 78.6, so Scotland's life expectancy is only a half-year or so below the US Average.
It should be noted those 17 are a) Southern states utterly dominated by the Conservative movement, b) the bit of the Rust Belt currently controlled by the GOP, or c) the District of Columbia. You can find a lot of narratives from the data to link these states, but the common denominator seems to be a) currently governed by people skeptical of government spending on health care, and b) large minority populations.
BTW, the list of top US States by life expectancy also supports their thesis. The top 6 are dominated by Democrats, with 6 Democratic Governors and 11 of 12 State Legislative Chambers being Democratic. Number 7 (North Dakota) is reliably Republican at the state level, but also likes to send Democrats, some quite left-wing on economic issues like universal health care, to the US Congress. You don't get a strong consensus that government should stay out of health care until you hit numbers 8 and 10.
The list of bottom ones supports their theory even better then I've implied. The bottom 12 or 13 states are Southern states, Oklahoma, and Appalachia. They don't have anything near universal health care in those states partly because they're poor, but mostly because the voters there refuse to vote for anyone who wants to spend tax money on anything. DC is smack-dab in the middle of that pack of mediocrity, but a) it's not technically a state, and b) it isn't really self-governing. Congress meddles in DC's internal affairs quite frequently, and except for a brief period (2009-2011) Congress has been remarkably hostile to universal healthcare.
The Ministry of Information would like to remind the proud citizens of the United States that we are Number One. No actual information can refute the fact that the US is Number One. Propaganda of this type is to be reported at once to the Minister of Information.
Please continue on and remember the United States is Number One.
An official statement from the Ministry of Information
---------------------
The problem is a broken system where "Official Facts" superseed actual analysis of information.
Every "fact" should be open to analysis and provide open access to its supporting documentation. And examination of that documentation should be encouraged. People should be educated to be very suspicious of any statement without open access to its supporting documentation. Instead general education encourages the rote acceptance of the official position.
In the US, sports like off-road biking, flying small airplanes etc. are common. Many people can commit suicide easily with guns. Here in, Germany it's a lot harder to engage in those activities. Committing suicide requires a lot more effort than simply putting a gun in my mouth. Even getting a motorcycle license is much more involved and costly (it costs many thousands of Euros). If you know German food, it's not surprising obesity rates are a bit lower too. And Germans generally seem a bit verklemmt when it comes to sex, so STD rates are lower too. If you look at US causes of deaths, that does explain a lot of the difference in life expectancy. Does that make life in Germany "better" than in the US? I don't think so. Having fun carries a certain amount of risk, and I'd rather have more fun instead of living a couple years longer in my 80s.
Any research that doesn't reach the conclusions you want must be biased. That is the cognitive bubble, right there.
Like all pain, suffering is a signal that something isn't right
And if the UK were split into constituent parts, no US state is likely to be worse than Scotland for general health and life expectancy.
That's nothing. North Korea is even worse!
== Jez ==
Do you miss Firefox? Try Pale Moon.
The analysis could probably be tailored to fit any assertion you wanted to make.
The whole point of the scientific method is that it makes it difficult or impossible to tailor your analysis to fit any assertion you wanted to make.
Scientists are people who read How to lie with statistics and put a lot of effort into preventing people from lying with statistics.
I didn't say anything about crimes. But if you insist: The person most likely to kill you is yourself, followed by your mother, your stepfather, your biological father, your significant other, your siblings and your children. If you have weapons in your home, those weapons are easily available to the persons most likely to kill you. For some irrational reasons, people fear the weapons in the hands of strangers much more (and try to defend against them) than the weapons in the hands of people most likely to kill you.
It's all socioeconomic and Darwinism.
In today's first-World countries, having money means having access to nutrition, shelter, clothes, quality healthcare, education, and hence a greater chance to survive childhood and reproduce, and also a greater chance to end up with health habits that result in longer life. Young people don't have money, meaning that they are too reliant on the generosity of their parents. It is a sad truth that a large majority of teen pregnancies are in situations where the parents have no money either, and the neo-con approach to social responsibility and education would be laughably ridiculous if it weren't so horrific in its effects. Don't have sex, mkay? Abortions bad, why didn't those girls just shut that whole thing down? We shouldn't be supporting those lazy women who just stay home pumping out kids. Let's repeal Obamacare.
WTF do they think will happen with those policies? That all the poorly educated -lucky to get any mininum-wage job at all- members of society are going to refrain from sex until their thirties, when somehow they'll magically find themselves living the American Dream in a nice suburb, decorating the Christmas trees with their spouse whilst dressed in their best Mr Roger's sweaters, with money and ready to start a family? Like fuck.
Everyone should read Freakonomics.
It's extremely difficult to go through the tiny print page by page without ordering a $80 copy, but I couldn't find anything in it which said that America still has a high rate of violent death and specifically death by guns after you limit it to rich whites. (In fact, it doesn't seem to contain many real statistics at all.) They use some references which say that America has a higher rate of firearm death, and they use some other references which may survey deaths among rich whites, but they're not combined. Even going by what's in the report, you can't conclude anything about ownership of guns by people who are not poor minorities living in inner cities.
I think we have the motto to put on the trillion dollar platinum coin:
"The United States of America - Likely No Worse Than Scotland".
The United States has about six violent deaths per 100,000 residents.
Homicide, they noted, is the second leading cause of death among adolescents and young adults aged 15-24. The large majority of those homicides involve firearms.
OK, let's do the math. Let's assume that other countries have zero violent deaths per 100,000 and have a life expectancy of 80 years. Let's assume that all 6 per 100,000 deaths in the US happen at age 15. How much does that affect our life expectancy?
99994 * 80 = 7999520
6 * 15 = 90
90 + 7999520 = 7999610
7999610 / 100,000 = 79.9961
80 - 79.9961 = 0.0039
The life expectancy difference between the US and the top performer is 4 years for men and 5 years for women. The maximum possible effect of gun violence according to the statistics in this report is 0.0039 of those years.
The report's authors were particularly critical of the availability of guns
True enough, but it was because of their preconceived notions, not because the data in the study supports their view.
Stop-Prism.org: Opt Out of Surveillance
Well... if you have a kid at 18-19, your whole situation is likely to take a hit, which can cascade to later children. You could be a genius, and if you're forced to leave/not attend college or work multiple jobs when you are younger, those choices can have a rippling effect for your later ability to obtain a good job and a good education. If you're a teen parent, the effect doesn't stop when you stop being a teen.
Having been around the world a couple times, I can say, the food here has a couple issues. Mostly, we are served quantity over quality. Taste is replaced with salt, processed fat, and chemical enhancements. The only place that has food comparable to ours is the UK. Other places all the meals are about 1/2 or less of what you get here. You sit down at a table to eat. Soda has sugar, not chemically enhanced corn syrup. When I eat in the US, I get a headache for about 30 minutes after eating. Ive nver had that happen outside the US unless its eating fast food in the airport traveling.
"Americans fare worse than people in other countries even when the analysis is limited to non-Hispanic whites and people with relatively high incomes and health insurance, nonsmokers, or people who are not obese."
Please at least read the summary of the post.
I'm sure obesity has something to do with the lower life expectancy in the U.S. I didn't actually read the article. I'm surprised chronic lung disease is a major factor in the U.S...is that due to pollution?...because fewer Americans supposedly smoke than in European countries.
Nearly a quarter of the workforce in Switzerland is foreign and, as far as the Swiss are concerned, effectively disposable. When unemployment goes up in Switzerland, the Swiss just lay off some foreign workers. Working conditions and pay are considerably worse for foreign workers, at least in my experience (I don't know whether they are supposed to be). And unlike the US, the Swiss are very efficient at keeping track of foreigners in the country (regular registration and "papers please") and presumably at getting rid of them when they are no longer needed. It's no wonder that with such a system, the Swiss themselves mostly end up with the secure, high-paying jobs.
How do I know? I was working as a guest worker in Switzerland for a few years. Someone even accidentally made me an offer for the same kind of job I was doing, thinking I was a Swiss citizen, which gave me a better idea of the job market for Swiss citizens, and then quickly retracted it when I told them that I was not.
Despite the differences in pay and conditions, Switzerland is still a nice country to work in for foreigners, and fortunately most Swiss are more modest and polite than you seem to be. But Switzerland doesn't have a magic solution to the problems of economic development, unless you consider using the rest of the world as a cheap and disposable labor pool a magic solution.
Actually...
- Healthy food is significantly more expensive - and poor people usually have not enough money for anything
- Exercise takes time you probably don't have when working two to three jobs (while still being poor).
I do not mean to say that poor people bear no responsibility for their health. Still, reality is more complicated
than "it's all their own damn fault".
I just skimmed a bunch of posts, and I'm wondering if more than 0.1% of you actually read any of the articles about it.
Let's see: it noted lack of access to medical care in mostly the below-median-income (i.e, half the country), due to cost.
But let's not create, say, a national medical system, like the UK's NHS, where they're all on salary, and so have no incentive to push all the newest, most expensive of everything, including what the drug co salesman left them samples of. No, we'd rather spend 25% to 75% or more of our medical dollars for multinational profits, as opposed to healthcare.
Oh, that's right, there was also an article I read yesterday, about a study showing that for-profit hospitals gave, overwhelmingly, worse care than non-profit, due to cost-cutting measures like fewer staff, and less one-on-one staff/patient care.
mark
And published in NAS does not necessarily mean peer review
Sorry, but you are wrong.
The NAS FAQ http://www.nationalacademies.org/newsroom/faq/index.html states:
So, yes, the fact that it's a report published by the National Academies of Sciences does mean peer review.
, or a good study.
First, the statement I was taking issue with was the statement "appears to not be peer-reviewed," which is incorrect.
The question as to whether it's a "good" study is a much harder one. Obviously, the purpose of peer review is to try to make sure that it is a good study, but peer review is not perfect. However National Academy of Sciences reports are quite meticulous; for the most part they are good studies. There are sometimes people who disagree with NAS reports for political reasons, and hence people trying to make a case that the studies are not good because they have an interest in discrediting them. These people, for the most part, are wrong.
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
Even if that were true, you can then look at the life expectancy after 1 year instead. Same pattern arises. Or look to see if the difference arises from infant deaths alone. Nope, it doesn't.
Point debunked.
This sounds like handwaving. There's plenty of information on dealing with the alleged infant mortality definition difference. See:
http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/databriefs/db23.htm#higher
Adjusting for the difference, the US still ends up behind.
Pepsi just introduced a stevia based drink, "Pepsi One" into Australia. Since a company as large as Pepsi is interested I'm sure if there's US regulations preventing it then those regulations will be removed soon since Pepsi is sure to have similar lobbying clout to the US corn lobby (if that's who has been lobbying to keep stevia out).
Your "healthcare" still has the vast inefficiency of being an insurance system with medical care tacked on as an afterthought in most cases, but that may improve since there has been so much political and press attention over the last few years.