Life expectancy is supposed to be a major measure of the health of a country. In the US it is 78.4 years versus 82.5 in much of Europe. But how long the average man or woman lives is subject to many different factors. For some time, critics of the US health system have pointed to our somewhat lower life expectancy compared to Japan, Korea or many European countries as an indicator that our system sucks. That isn’t actually the explanation, at least not in the way those critics mean it. The Petersen Foundation issues a report on what really may account for those differences. (PF Report)
The report finds that the US’ “premature” death rate, deaths of people under the age of 70 is about twice as high as that of the comparator countries. These premature deaths include cardiovascular causes, chronic respiratory disease and chronic kidney disease, and collectively account for about 32% of the difference in premature death rates. 14% was due to drug and alcohol abuse. The latter category has a huge effect on life expectancy becasue most of those deaths are to younger people. We have more homicides, a lot more homicides. We have more suicides, we have more car accident deaths. A basically one-time factor, the CV-19 epidemic, accounts for another 21%. Among 15 to 49 year-olds, the US death rate is twice that of the comparator nations. We have a higher minority population than most of the other countries.
If you strip out the excess deaths in younger Americans, it looks to me like life expectancy in the US would not be that much different from many other advanced countries. We do have some residual excess deaths due to poor lifestyle choices–being overweight, lack of exercise, that lead to chronic diseases. But if we want longer life expectancy, the focus should be on teens and young adults and stopping the drug and alcohol abuse, homicide and suicide epidemics.
“But if we want longer life expectancy, the focus should be on teens and young adults and stopping the drug and alcohol abuse, homicide and suicide epidemics.” No, the focus must be on wellness, eliminating the primary root causes of the diseases and conditions that affect the majority of adults; we can become a fit and healthy nations by living by my Golden for Fitness & Health: eat healthy food in the right amount, exercise regularly, do cardiovascular exercise and strength training, don’t smoke, and get a good night’s sleep.
A quick search indicates that for 2023 life expectancy at age 65 was 20.2 years in the EU compared to 19.5 in the US. So indeed it seems that most of the 4 year difference at birth is due to deaths in younger people
The argument over life expectancy in the US vs Europe and other industrialized countries highlights the problem of not understanding statistics, data, and understanding of basic facts and how easy it is to get fooled with misleading data (and omitted data )
Quite a bit of data was available and a major topic of discussion prior to Obama care.
Properly adjusted for the accidental deaths, suicides, murder, auto deaths, there is very little differences in life expectancy. Same with measuring life expectancy by demographic groups.
Another overlooked factor is latitude. Worldwide, For every 10 degrees north in latitude, there is approximately a 1 year increase in life expectancy, from the equator 0 degrees N/S up to around the 60th parallel. ( I will let Kevin R weigh in on my observation on this – seems that I may be one of the few to notice this )
another point, is that life expectancy after discovery of disease is typically 1-2 years longer in the US than most European countries (this last comment is with the caveat that it is based on my memory from the obamacare debates )