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China Overtakes US For Healthy Lifespan, WHO Data Finds (reuters.com)

According to World Health Organization data, China has overtaken the United States in healthy life expectancy at birth for the first time. The data from 2016 finds Chinese newborns can look forward to 68.7 years of healthy life ahead of them, compared with 68.5 years for American babies. "American newborns can still expect to live longer overall -- 78.5 years compared to China's 76.4 -- but the last 10 years of American lives are not expected to be healthy," reports Reuters. From the report: The United States was one of only five countries, along with Somalia, Afghanistan, Georgia and Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, where healthy life expectancy at birth fell in 2016, according to a Reuters analysis of the WHO data, which was published without year-on-year comparisons in mid-May. The best outlook was for Singaporean babies, who can count on 76.2 years of health on average, followed by those in Japan, Spain and Switzerland. The United States came 40th in the global rankings, while China was 37th. In terms of overall life expectancy China is also catching up with the United States, which Reuters calculations suggest it is on course to overtake around 2027. Meanwhile U.S. life expectancy is falling, having peaked at 79 years in 2014, the first such reversal for many years.

4 of 286 comments (clear)

  1. Re:lies by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 3, Informative

    China has way more traffic deaths than America. Although they drive less, they have about twice the per capita death rate.

    List of countries by traffic deaths

  2. Re:lies by Sique · · Score: 5, Informative
    They don't look into factors at all. This is just looking at death rates for each age cohort and then summing up the probability for each age cohort to die within the next year. This is purely statistics.

    And you can do the same thing with chronic illnesses. You just get the number of chronic illnesses in each age cohort and then calculate the probability to catch a chronic illness within the next year.

    If you sum up each age cohort from 0 to the maximum age, you get two probabilities: First, the probable life span of a newborn, and second the probable lifespan without chronic illnesses for a newborn.

    This statistic does not make any statements about the reasons why the life expectancy and the healthy life span expectancy is as high as it is. It just reports a number.

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    .sig: Sique *sigh*
  3. Re:lies by zifn4b · · Score: 1, Informative

    Do you remember what George Carlin said the United States' biggest export was? Pure 100% Grade A Bull____. And it's true. I'm disgusted by my country.

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    We'll make great pets
  4. This will never be fixed in the USA by coolmoe2 · · Score: 3, Informative
    This is what you get when you run healthcare for profit.

    You basically have a choice to return shareholder value or save lives but you certainly cannot have both. It's really simple to understand because if you run it for profit it becomes unaffordable for the poor. That is why we pay more for heathcare then anybody else in the world.

    We have made our choice here to keep raking in profits over saving lives here so this problem is not going to get better in the near future.