US slipping in ranking of life expectancy

The US spends the most on healthcare as percentage of GDP of any advanced industrial country. The US system is very inefficient. THe UK has a reasonable universal system and spends just about the same percentage of GDP overall as the US spends as public expenditure, but the US system fails to cover everyone and has a huge private expenditure as well.
I imagine life expectancy varies with income as well as ethnic status as well.


U.S. life span shorter

By Stephen Ohlemacher
Associated Press
August 11, 2007

Washington --Americans are living longer than ever, but not as long as
people in 41 other countries.For decades, the United States has been
slipping in international rankings of life expectancy, as other
countries
improve health care, nutrition and lifestyles.

Countries that surpass the U.S. include Japan and most of Europe, as
well as
Jordan, Guam and the Cayman Islands.

"Something's wrong here when one of the richest countries in the world,
the
one that spends the most on health care, is not able to keep up with
other
countries," said Dr. Christopher Murray, head of the Institute for
Health
Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington.

A baby born in the United States in 2004 will live an average of 77.9
years.
That life expectancy ranks 42nd, down from 11th two decades earlier,
according to international numbers provided by the Census Bureau and
domestic numbers from the National Center for Health Statistics.

Andorra, a tiny country in the Pyrenees mountains between France and
Spain,
had the longest life expectancy, at 83.5 years, according to the Census
Bureau. It was followed by Japan, Macau, San Marino and Singapore.

The shortest life expectancies were clustered in Sub-Saharan Africa, a
region that has been hit hard by an epidemic of HIV and AIDS, as well
as
famine and civil strife. Swaziland has the shortest, at 34.1 years,
followed
by Zambia, Angola, Liberia and Zimbabwe.

Researchers said several factors have contributed to the United States
falling behind other industrialized nations. A major one is that 45
million
Americans lack health insurance, while Canada and many European
countries
have universal health care, they say.

But "it's not as simple as saying we don't have national health
insurance,"
said Sam Harper, an epidemiologist at McGill University in Montreal.
"It's
not that easy."

Among the other factors:

-- Adults in the United States have one of the highest obesity rates in
the
world. Nearly a third of U.S. adults 20 years and older are obese,
while
about two-thirds are overweight, according to the National Center for
Health
Statistics.

"The U.S. has the resources that allow people to get fat and lazy,"
said
Paul Terry, an assistant professor of epidemiology at Emory University
in
Atlanta. "We have the luxury of choosing a bad lifestyle as opposed to
having one imposed on us by hard times."

-- Racial disparities. Black Americans have an average life expectancy
of
73.3 years, five years shorter than white Americans.

Black American males have a life expectancy of 69.8 years, slightly
longer
than the averages for Iran and Syria and slightly shorter than in
Nicaragua
and Morocco.

-- A relatively high percentage of babies born in the U.S. die before
their
first birthday, compared with other industrialized nations.

Forty countries, including Cuba, Taiwan and most of Europe had lower
infant
mortality rates than the U.S. in 2004. The U.S. rate was 6.8 deaths for
every 1,000 live births. It was 13.7 for Black Americans, the same as
Saudi
Arabia.

"It really reflects the social conditions in which African American
women
grow up and have children," said Dr. Marie C. McCormick, professor of
maternal and child health at the Harvard School of Public Health. "We
haven't done anything to eliminate those disparities."

Another reason for the U.S. drop in the ranking is that the Census
Bureau
now tracks life expectancy for a lot more countries -- 222 in 2004 --
than
it did in the 1980s. However, that does not explain why so many
countries
entered the rankings with longer life expectancies than the United
States.

Murray, from the University of Washington, said improved access to
health
insurance could increase life expectancy. But, he predicted, the U.S.
won't
move up in the world rankings as long as the health care debate is
limited
to insurance.

Policymakers also should focus on ways to reduce cancer, heart disease
and
lung disease, said Murray. He advocates stepped-up efforts to reduce
tobacco
use, control blood pressure, reduce cholesterol and regulate blood
sugar.

"Even if we focused only on those four things, we would go along way
toward
improving health care in the United States," Murray said. "The starting
point is the recognition that the U.S. does not have the best health
care
system. There are still an awful lot of people who think it does."

http://www.boston.com/news/education/higher/articles/2007/08/11/us_life_span
_shorter/