Life span in USA shorter than other developed countries: study
Posted January 10, 2013 8:53 am.
This article is more than 5 years old.
Americans have shorter life spans than people living in other wealthy, developed countries, the Institute of Medicine and the National Research Council said Thursday.
“It’s a tragedy. Our report found that an equally large, if not larger, disadvantage exists among younger Americans,” said Steven H. Woolf, the chair of the panel that wrote the report.
“I don’t think most parents know that, on average, infants, children, and adolescents in the U.S. die younger and have greater rates of illness and injury than youth in other countries.”
Unaffordable health care, eating too much and poor childhood health are factors, researchers found. High income inequality was also a factor.
Even advantaged Americans — those who have health insurance, college educations, higher incomes, and healthy behaviors — appear to be sicker than their peers in other rich nations.
When compared to 17 other countries — including Canada, Japan and the United Kingdom — 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.
The average life span of an American woman is 80.78 years – 16th out the 17 nations. For American men, it’s 75.64 years – last place on the list.
Canadian men have an average lifespan of 78 years, placing us at 6th on the list, while women have a lifespan of nearly 83 years – 7th on the list.
