New Health Rankings: Of 17 Nations, U.S. Is Dead L

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New Health Rankings: Of 17 Nations, U.S. Is Dead Last

Dollars to donuts, pun intended, I'll wager that processed foods are the least of it. This article suggests as much, identifying as it does many, many other factors.

Processed foods? Anyone paying attention can shop and avoid almost entirely whichever you consider the most 'lethal' of foods.

So, education, lack of, is a big factor in how many of us get sick.

Grace Rubenstein
Jan 10, 2013

Will seeing just how far we've fallen behind other countries, across almost all measures of health, finally motivate change?

https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/20...st/267045/

Co-author Paula Braveman, who directs the Center on Social Disparities in Health at University of California, San Francisco, said the panel grappled with this question as it searched for explanations for our poor health: "Is it Americans' rugged individualism and the sense that the most important thing is the individual's freedom, and that's so much more important than doing what's right for society?"

Might our national M.O., in other words, be summed up as "Live free and die"?

Not that one factor is likely to be able to explain everything. The panelists identified a host of factors: More than other countries, our health care system is fragmented, unaffordable for many people, and short on primary care. Of the countries studied, we have the highest rate of children living in poverty. More of our communities are built around cars, which may discourage exercise.

Among the most striking of the report's findings are that, among the countries studied, the U.S. has:

•The highest rate of death by violence, by a stunning margin
•The highest rate of death by car accident, also dramatically so
•The highest chance that a child will die before age 5
• The second-highest rate of death by coronary heart disease
• The second-highest rate of death by lung disease
•The highest teen pregnancy rate
• The highest rate of women dying due to complications of pregnancy and childbirth

The panelists' research uncovered no single cause, no rallying point for action, that accounts for the totality of our unhealthiness -- a complexity which makes the message harder to deliver and the solutions harder to achieve.

The report does reveal bright spots: Americans are more likely to survive cancer or stroke, and if we live to age 75 we're likely to keep on living longer than others. But these advances are dwarfed by the grave shortcomings.

Here's the rub. Reading through the panel's suggested solutions, it's impossible not to notice that a number of these involve public money and policy, and so would have to get through Congress.

Many of the core recommendations read like the House Republicans' hit list: affordable health insurance for everyone, programs to encourage healthier behavior (read: nanny state), a stronger public safety net for people in poverty. There's even a hint of gun control.

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