US Health in International Perspective: Shorter Lives, Poorer Health

421 Pages·2012·5 MB·English

This PDF is available from The National Academies Press at http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=13497
U.S. Health in International Perspective: Shorter Lives, Poorer
Health
Steven H. Woolf and Laudan Aron, Editors; Panel on Understanding
ISBN
978-0-309-26414-3 Cross-National Health Differences Among High-Income Countries;
Committee on Population; Division of Behavioral and Social Sciences and
424 pages
Education; National Research Council; Board on Population Health and
6 x 9
Public Health Practice; Institute of Medicine
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Copyright © National Academy of Sciences. All rights reserved.
U.S. Health in International Perspective: Shorter Lives, Poorer Health
Panel on Understanding Cross-National Health Differences
Among High-Income Countries
Steven H. Woolf and Laudan Aron, Editors
Committee on Population
Division of Behavioral and Social Sciences and Education
Board on Population Health and Public Health Practice
Institute of Medicine
Copyright © National Academy of Sciences. All rights reserved.
U.S. Health in International Perspective: Shorter Lives, Poorer Health
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ing, and the Institute of Medicine. The members of the panel responsible for the
report were chosen for their special competences and with regard for appropriate
balance.
This study was supported by the John E. Fogarty International Center, the National
Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine, the National Institute on
Aging, and the Offce of Behavioral and Social Sciences Research, all within the
National Institutes of Health, and the Offce of Women’s Health within the U.S.
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International Standard Book Number-13: 978-0-309-26414-3
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Suggested citation: National Research Council and Institute of Medicine. (2013).
U.S. Health in International Perspective: Shorter Lives, Poorer Health. Panel on
Understanding Cross-National Health Differences Among High-Income Countries,
Steven H. Woolf and Laudan Aron, Eds. Committee on Population, Division of
Behavioral and Social Sciences and Education, and Board on Population Health
and Public Health Practice, Institute of Medicine. Washington, DC: The National
Academies Press.
Copyright © National Academy of Sciences. All rights reserved.
U.S. Health in International Perspective: Shorter Lives, Poorer Health
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Copyright © National Academy of Sciences. All rights reserved.
U.S. Health in International Perspective: Shorter Lives, Poorer Health
Copyright © National Academy of Sciences. All rights reserved.
U.S. Health in International Perspective: Shorter Lives, Poorer Health
PANEL ON UNDERSTANDING CROSS-NATIONAL HEALTH
DIFFERENCES AMONG HIGH-INCOME COUNTRIES
STEVEN H. WOOLF (Chair of Panel), Department of Family Medicine,
Virginia Commonwealth University
PAULA A. BRAVEMAN, School of Medicine, University of California,
San Francisco
KAARE CHRISTENSEN, Institute of Public Health, University of
Southern Denmark
EILEEN M. CRIMMINS, Davis School of Gerontology, University of
Southern California
ANA V. DIEZ ROUX, School of Public Health, University of Michigan
DEAN T. JAMISON, Department of Global Health, University of
Washington
JOHAN P. MACKENBACH, Department of Public Health,
Erasmus University, Rotterdam, The Netherlands
DAVID V. McQUEEN, Global Consultant, Atlanta, GA
ALBERTO PALLONI, Department of Sociology, University of
Wisconsin–Madison
SAMUEL H. PRESTON, Department of Sociology, University of
Pennsylvania
LAUDAN ARON, Study Director
DANIELLE JOHNSON, Senior Program Assistant
v
Copyright © National Academy of Sciences. All rights reserved.
U.S. Health in International Perspective: Shorter Lives, Poorer Health
COMMITTEE ON POPULATION
2012
LINDA J. WAITE (Chair), Department of Sociology, University of
Chicago
CHRISTINE BACHRACH, School of Behavioral and Social Sciences,
University of Maryland
JERE BEHRMAN, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania
PETER J. DONALDSON, Population Council, New York, NY
KATHLEEN HARRIS, Carolina Population Center, University of North
Carolina at Chapel Hill
MARK HAYWARD, Population Research Center, University of Texas,
Austin
CHARLES HIRSCHMAN, Department of Sociology, University of
Washington
WOLFGANG LUTZ, World Population Program, International Institute
for Applied Systems Analysis, Laxenburg, Austria
ROBERT MARE, Department of Sociology, University of California,
Los Angeles
SARA McLANAHAN, Center for Research on Child Wellbeing,
Princeton University
BARBARA B. TORREY, Independent Consultant, Washington, DC
MAXINE WEINSTEIN, Center for Population and Health, Georgetown
University
DAVID WEIR, Survey Research Center, Institute for Social Research,
University of Michigan
JOHN R. WILMOTH, Department of Demography, University of
California, Berkeley
BARNEY COHEN, Director (until August 2012)
THOMAS PLEWES, Director (after August 2012)
vi
Copyright © National Academy of Sciences. All rights reserved.
U.S. Health in International Perspective: Shorter Lives, Poorer Health
BOARD ON POPULATION HEALTH
AND PUBLIC HEALTH PRACTICE
2012
ELLEN WRIGHT CLAYTON (Chair), Center for Biomedical Ethics and
Society, Vanderbilt University
MARGARITA ALEGRÍA, Cambridge Health Alliance, Somerville, MA
SUSAN M. ALLAN, Northwest Center for Public Health Practice,
University of Washington
GEORGES C. BENJAMIN, American Public Health Association,
Washington, DC
BOBBIE A. BERKOWITZ, School of Nursing, Columbia University
DAVID R. CHALLONER, Vice President for Health Affairs, Emeritus,
University of Florida
R. ALTA CHARO, University of Wisconsin Law School
JOSE JULIO ESCARCE, Department of General Internal Medicine and
Health Services Research, Department of Medicine, University of
California, Los Angeles
ALVIN D. JACKSON, Ohio Department of Health, Fremont, OH
MATTHEW W. KREUTER, George Warren Brown School of Social
Work, Washington University in Saint Louis
HOWARD MARKEL, University of Michigan Medical School
MARGARET E. O’KANE, National Committee for Quality Assurance,
Washington, DC
SUSAN L. SANTOS, School of Public Health, University of Medicine and
Dentistry of New Jersey
MARTIN JOSE SEPÚLVEDA, Integrated Health Services, International
Business Machines Corporation, Somers, NY
SAMUEL SO, School of Medicine, Stanford University
ANTONIA M. VILLARRUEL, School of Nursing, University of
Michigan
PAUL J. WALLACE, The Lewin Group, Falls Church, VA
ROSE MARIE MARTINEZ, Director
vii
Copyright © National Academy of Sciences. All rights reserved.
U.S. Health in International Perspective: Shorter Lives, Poorer Health
Copyright © National Academy of Sciences. All rights reserved.
U.S. Health in International Perspective: Shorter Lives, Poorer Health
Foreword
he United States spends much more money on health care than any
other country. Yet Americans die sooner and experience more illness
Tthan residents in many other countries. While the length of life has
improved in the United States, other countries have gained life years even
faster, and our relative standing in the world has fallen over the past half
century.
What accounts for the paradoxical combination in the United States
of relatively great wealth and high spending on health care with relatively
poor health status and lower life expectancy? That is the question posed to
the panel that produced this report, U.S. Health in International Perspec-
tive: Shorter Lives, Poorer Health. The group included experts in medicine,
epidemiology, and demography and other felds in the social sciences. They
scrutinized the relevant data and studies to discern the nature and scope of
the U.S. disadvantage, to explore potential explanations, and to point the
way toward improving the nation’s health performance.
The report identifes a number of misconceptions about the causes of
the nation’s relatively poor performance. The problem is not simply a mat-
ter of a large uninsured population or even of social and economic disad-
vantage. It cannot be explained away by the racial and ethnic diversity of
the U.S. population. The report shows that even relatively well-off Ameri-
cans who do not smoke and are not overweight may experience inferior
health in comparison with their counterparts in other wealthy countries.
The U.S. health disadvantage is expressed in higher rates of chronic disease
and mortality among adults and in higher rates of untimely death and inju-
ries among adolescents and small children. The American health-wealth
ix
Copyright © National Academy of Sciences. All rights reserved.