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US worst in preventable deaths

By jlynch on January 7, 2008.

A study in Heath Affairs ranks the US worst among 19 industrialized nations in preventable deaths in 2002-’03. Rankings are:

    1. France (64.8 preventable deaths per 100,000 people)
    2. Japan (71.2)
    3. Australia (71.3)
    4. Spain
    5. Italy
    6. Canada
    7. Norway
    8. Netherlands
    9. Sweden
    10. Greece
    11. Austria
    12. Germany
    13. Finland
    14. New Zealand
    15. Denmark
    16. Britain
    17. Ireland
    18. Portugal
    19. United States (109.7)

The authors note that the problem with the US is not the health care system itself, but access to the system, with 47 million people (of ~300 million) lacking health insurance.

Interestingly, the US dropped five slots since 1998, and while overall the mean preventable death rate dropped since ’98 by an average of 17 percent, the U.S. decline was only 4 percent.

Ref: Nolte, E. and McKee, C.M. (2008) "Measuring the health of nations: Updating an earlier analysis" Health Affairs 27(1): 58 - 71. doi: 10.1377/hlthaff.27.1.58

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does the 37 million uninsured include millions of illegal immigrants who's uninsured status really should be counted against their country of origin?

does it include people who chose to spend their disposable income on cigarettes and cable tv rather than "unaffordable" health coverage? i.e., the large segment of households with income greater than $60,000 who self insure?

John, just wait a few years! I bet France will go down a dozen ranks soon. I've been off two years only, and I can already see a change. The trend seems unfortunately true about many other societal things.