[Report] World Health Statistics 2014 Now Online
World Health Statistics 2014 contains WHO’s annual compilation of health-related data for its 194 Member States, and includes a summary of the progress made towards achieving the health-related Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and associated targets.
This year, it also includes highlight summaries on the ongoing commitment to end preventable maternal deaths; on the need to act now to combat rising levels of childhood obesity; on recent trends in both life expectancy and premature deaths; and on the crucial role of civil registration and vital statistics systems in national and global advancement.
- Progress on the health-related Millennium Development Goals (MDGs)
Fact sheet N°290
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[Press release] Health spending is more efficient for men than for women
From the 12 December McGill University press release
Health expenditures show stronger association with gains in life expectancy for males than for females throughout the industrialized countries of the world
PUBLISHED: 12 DEC 2013Health care spending is a large – and ever increasing – portion of government budgets. Improving its efficiency has therefore become critically important. In the first-ever study to estimate health spending efficiency by gender across 27 industrialized nations, researchers discovered significant disparities within countries, with stronger gains in life expectancy for men than for women in nearly every nation.
“We were surprised to find a large gender gap in spending efficiency throughout the industrialized countries of the world. The average life expectancy of women rose from 75.5 to 79.8 between 1991 and 2007, while that of men rose from 72.5 to 77.1. The improvement for men had a much stronger association with health expenditures. In Canada, for example, a $100 increase in health expenditures was associated with a 1.26-month increase in life expectancy for women, compared to a 2.56-month increase for men,” said Douglas Barthold, lead author and doctoral candidate in the Department of Economics at McGill University.
In the United States, a $100 increase in spending was associated with a 0.04 month increase in life expectancy for women, compared to a 0.70 month increase for men. Men fared better in the most efficient countries, like Germany, Switzerland, and Italy, as well as in the least efficient countries, like the USA, Sweden, and Poland. Canada’s overall efficiency ranked 8th out of 27 countries. The United States ranked 22nd.
“Out of the 27 industrialized nations we studied, the United States ranks 25th when it comes to reducing women’s deaths. The country’s efficiency of investments in reducing men’s deaths is only slightly better – ranking 18 out of 27,” said Dr. Jody Heymann, senior author and Dean of the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health.
The researchers examined the relationship between internationally comparable measures of health expenditures, and gender specific life expectancy, while accounting for differences in social expenditures, economic development, and health behaviors. The analysis used country-level data from 27 Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries during the period 1991 to 2007.
“While there are large differences in the efficiency of health spending across countries, men have experienced greater life expectancy gains than women per health dollar spent within nearly every country,” said Barthold. The exact causes of the gender gap are unknown, thus highlighting the need for additional research on the topic. The study is coauthored by Prof. Arijit Nandi and José Mauricio Mendoza Rodríguez of McGill. The findings are published online in the First Look section of the American Journal of Public Health.
The study was part of the Healthier Societies Initiative at McGill University’s Institute for Health and Social Policy. The Healthier Societies Initiative is a research program funded by Arnold and Blema Steinberg, which informs the public on health care issues related to increasing costs, health quality and access in Canada and other leading economies. A new website, www.healthiersocieties.org, aims to improve health system understanding for the public and policy makers by offering user-friendly interactive visual tools, and allowing comparisons of policies and trends across provinces and nations.
Related articles
- U.S. Ranks Near Bottom Among Advanced Nations In Efficiency Of Health Care Spending (wonderfultips.wordpress.com)
- Health spending is more efficient for men than for women (eurekalert.org)
- Life Expectancy In US Rising Slower Than Elsewhere – OECD (247wallst.com)
- World’s Rich Countries Hit Brake for Health Spending: OECD (medindia.net)
- Nearly a third of 34 OECD states see drop in health spend (irishtimes.com)
[Reblog] Social inequality: A blind spot for health reporters
Joe Rojas-Burke is AHCJ’s core topic leader on the social determinants of health. To help journalists broaden the frame of health coverage to include factors such as education, income, neighborhood and social network, Rojas-Burke will hunt for resources, highlight excellent work and moderate discussions with journalists and experts. Send questions or suggestions to joe@healthjournalism.org or tweet to @rojasburke.
Dozens of news stories over the past year have reported on the disturbing data showing that Americans are dying younger than people in other wealthy countries and falling behind in many other measures of population health.
But much of the reporting I’ve seen shies away from covering a crucial part of the story: How social inequality may be the most important reason why the health status of Americans is failing to keep up with progress elsewhere.
Being born into poverty, growing up with curtailed opportunities for education and employment, living in a disadvantaged neighborhood – these social determinants of health are like the cards you’re dealt in a game of poker. It’s hard to win if the deck is stacked against you.
Researchers in sociology and public health have developed a fair amount of evidence that social status (typically measured by income or education) may be the most significant shaper of health, disability and lifespan at the population level. In the picture that is emerging, social status acts through a complicated chain of cause-and-effect. Education equips people with knowledge and skills to adopt healthy behaviors. It improves the chances of securing a job with healthy working conditions, higher wages, and being able to afford housing in a neighborhood secure from violence and pollution. The job security and higher income that tend to come with more education provide a buffer from chronic stress – a corrosive force that undermines health among lesser educated, lower income people. Research consistently shows that more education gives people a greater sense of personal control. Positive beliefs about personal control have a profound impact on how people approach life, make decisions about risky behavior, and cope with illness.
Since 1980, virtually all gains in life expectancy in the U.S. have occurred among highly educated groups. In a revealing analysis published in 2008, researchers looked at long-term changes in infant mortality and adult deaths before age 65 and found a widening gap between haves and have-nots over the past 30 years. If all people in the U.S. population experienced the same health gains as the most advantaged, they found that 14 percent of the premature deaths among whites and 30 percent of premature deaths among people of color would have been prevented.
But news outlets seem almost afraid to dig into questions about social inequality. Take, for example, CNN’s coverage of the Institute Of Medicine’s “Shorter Lives, Poorer Health” report in January. The IOM experts examined many measures in which the United States is lagging behind gains in other nations: infant mortality, disabilities, homicides, teen pregnancy, drug-related deaths, obesity, prevalence of AIDS, and life expectancy.
When the CNN coverage got around to explaining likely causes, it tossed out a range of possibilities, most of them blaming individual behavior. Compared with other wealthy nations we eat too much, spend more time driving than walking, fail to use seat belts, abuse more drugs, and use guns to shoot each other more. In the middle of this laundry list, the CNN report makes a glancing reference to the social determinants of health: “Americans benefit much less from social programs that could negate the effects of poverty.”
In July, a headline-garnering paper in the Journal of the American Medical Association explained how the U.S. lapsed from 20th to 27th among wealthy nations in terms of life expectancy at birth, and from 18th to 27th in terms of premature deaths.
…
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- Social Determinants of Health (ajpmonline.wordpress.com)
- Social Determinants of Health: Us and Them (ajpmonline.wordpress.com)
- [News article] Britain’s poor ‘will die before they retire’ if pension reforms aren’t matched by health improvements (jflahiff.wordpress.com)
- The poor die young – in Leeds as in the rest of the UK. The injustice of the Coalition’s pension proposals. (leedsnwclp.wordpress.com)
- World Health Organisation: unemployed youth in Britain are a public health time bomb (telegraph.co.uk)
- New Evidence on Social Isolation and Mortality (inequalitiesblog.wordpress.com)
- Britain told social inequality has created ‘public health timebomb’ (theguardian.com)
- Collapsing civilization: Britain told social inequality has created ‘public health timebomb’ (sott.net)
- Three Theories of Health and the Mortality Shift (healthandeverythingblog.wordpress.com)
[News article] Britain’s poor ‘will die before they retire’ if pension reforms aren’t matched by health improvements
From the 6 December 2013 article at The Independent
Thousands of Britain’s poorest people “will be dead before they can retire” if sweeping pension reforms are not matched by urgent action on health inequalities between rich and poor, experts have said.
Plans to raise the basic state pension age to 70 for people currently in their twenties were laid out in the George Osborne’s Autumn Statement this week. But with male life expectancy at birth as low as 66 in some of the most deprived parts of the country, public health experts have warned that a “one size fits all” pension age risks condemning many to a life without retirement.
Average UK life expectancy at birth was 78.2 in 2010. Nationally, the figure is increasing, but huge variations exist and progress has been slower in deprived communities where poverty leads to poor diets, smoking rates are higher and alcohol abuse more common.
In Glasgow City, where male life expectancy at birth is 71.6, boys born in 2010 are expected to die on average 13.5 years earlier than those born in the London borough Kensington and Chelsea, where life expectancy is 85.1. Girls in born in the London borough in 2010 can expect 12 more years of life than those in Glasgow. Even these figures veil vast inequalities that exist within regions, with life expectancies as low as 66 years in some of Glasgow’s most deprived areas.
Martin McKee, professor of European Public Health at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, and fellow of the Faculty of Public Health, said that if the Government wanted to raise the pension age, they must first tackle health inequalities.
“George Osborne is thinking about the average life expectancy. The average life expectancy is fairly meaningless if you’re living in a former coal mining village in Nottinghamshire or in inner-city Glasgow,” he toldThe Independent. “There are many parts of the country where people have nowhere near the average life expectancy and, crucially, nowhere near the average healthy life expectancy. It’s not just the fact people will be dead before they reach pensionable age, it’s that they will be unfit to work.”
David Walsh, a public health expert at the Glasgow Population Health Centre said that a single pension age across all areas of the country was “at the very least problematic”.
…
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- Britain’s Poor Will Die Before They Retire (sorendreier.com)
- Britain’s poor ‘will die before they retire’ if pension reforms aren’t matched by health improvements (engineeringevil.com)
- Living Longer…and Longer…. (worthwhile.typepad.com)
- Work until you’re 70: Chancellor George Osborne accused of ‘living in fantasy land’ over Autumn Statement pension reforms (independent.co.uk)
- Ever receding retirement? (centrallobby.politicshome.com)
- State pension: age-old problems | Editorial (theguardian.com)
Just under a third of us will reach 65 “healthy”
Write text here…
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- Are You Prepared for the Challenges that Come with Longevity? (bargaineering.com)
Guest blog by Matt Hawkins, Policy and Public Affairs Assistant at the International Longevity Centre-UK
Discussion at an International Longevity Centre-UK, (ILC-UK) event held on Monday, Longevity, health and public policy, revealed that only just short of a third of the UK population will reach retirement “healthy”. Gains in life expectancy have outstripped gains in healthy life expectancy, meaning that potentially over two thirds of people in the UK could find that they are living their retirement years in ill-health.
As a think-tank dedicated to addressing the impacts of our ageing society across generations and throughout the life-course, these findings are of particular concern to ILC-UK. If people are reaching older age in ill-health then this is going to significantly decrease their capacity to remain in work and significantly increase their care needs.
Monday’s event sought to identify the obstacles we face in promoting a healthier older population and…
View original post 408 more words
Life expectancy, life disparity
This is a serious post about life expectancy and inequality. But first a short rant.
Quick: Life expectancy in the U.S. is 78.7 Your parents are 85. How much longer are they expected to live? If you were worried about how much time you had left to spend with them, and you asked the helpful site seeyourfolks.com, you would get this:
This app, and the Slate piece about it, managed to combined two of my pet peeves: the understandable difficulty with understanding life expectancy, and the inexcusable use of second-person reporting on social science findings, which does more to discredit than to disseminate important research.
The error here (apart from “you”) is the common notion that “life expectancy” is the average age at which people of any current age can expect to die. If we were more rigorous about using the phrase “life expectancy at birth” it would be easier…
View original post 759 more words
U.S. Health in International Perspective: Shorter Lives, Poorer Health
From the summary at the Institute on Medicine
U.S. Health in International Perspective: Shorter Lives, Poorer Health
- Released:
- January 9, 2013
- Type:
- Consensus Report
- Topics:
- Public Health, Aging
- Activity:
- Understanding Cross-National Health Differences Among High-Income Countries
- Boards:
- Board on Population Health and Public Health Practice, Division of Behavioral and Social Sciences and Education
The United States is among the wealthiest nations in the world, but it is far from the healthiest. For many years, Americans have been dying at younger ages than people in almost all other high-income countries. This health disadvantage prevails even though the U.S. spends far more per person on health care than any other nation. To gain a better understanding of this problem, the NIH asked the National Research Council and the IOM to investigate potential reasons for the U.S. health disadvantage and to assess its larger implications.
No single factor can fully explain the U.S. health disadvantage. It likely has multiple causes and involves some combination of inadequate health care, unhealthy behaviors, adverse economic and social conditions, and environmental factors, as well as public policies and social values that shape those conditions. Without action to reverse current trends, the health of Americans will probably continue to fall behind that of people in other high-income countries. The tragedy is not that the U.S. is losing a contest with other countries, but that Americans are dying and suffering from illness and injury at rates that are demonstrably unnecessary.
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- Why Is the United States So Sick? (slate.com)
Excerpt
“The poorer outcomes in the United States are reflected in measures as varied as infant mortality, the rate of teen pregnancy, traffic fatalities, and heart disease. Even those with health insurance, high incomes, college educations, and healthy lifestyles appear to be sicker than their counterparts in other wealthy countries. The U.S. Council on Foreign Relations, a nonpartisan think tank, described the report as “a catalog of horrors.”
Findings that prompted this reaction include the fact that the rate of premature births in the United States is the highest among the comparison countries and more closely resembles those of sub-Saharan Africa. Premature birth is the most frequent cause of infant death in the United States, and the cost to the health care system is estimated to top $26 billion a year.
As distressing as all this is, much less attention has been given to the obvious question: Why is the United States so unwell? The answer, it turns out, is simple and yet deceptively complex: It’s almost everything.
Our health depends on much more than just medical care. Behaviors such as diet, physical activity, and even how fast we drive all have profound effects. So do the environments that expose us to health risks or discourage healthy living, as well as social determinants of health, such as education, income, and poverty.
The United States fares poorly in almost all of these. In addition to many millions of people lacking health insurance, financial barriers to care, and a lack of primary care providers compared with other rich countries, people in the United States consume more calories, are more sedentary, abuse more drugs, and shoot one another more often. The United States also lags behind on many measures of education, has higher child poverty and income inequality, and lower social mobility than most other advanced democracies.
The breadth of these causal factors, and the scope of the U.S. health disadvantage they produce, raises some fundamental questions about U.S. society. As the NRC/IOM report noted, solutions exist for many of these health problems, but there is “limited political support among both the public and policymakers to enact the policies and commit the necessary resources.”
One major impediment is that the United States, which emphasizes self-reliance, individualism, and free markets, is resistant to anything that even appears to hint at socialism. …”
- Charted: Female mortality trends in 21 high-income countries (projectmillennial.org)
- Yes, the Status of Health in the U.S. Is a Disaster. Why Do You Ask? (delong.typepad.com)
- Study: U.S. most expensive healthcare, mediocre outcomes (upi.com)
- U.S. Health Disadvantage is Not Inevitable (inequalitiesblog.wordpress.com)
Life Expectancy Shortest In Southern ‘Poverty Belt’ (INFOGRAPHIC)
From the 19 July post at HuffPost
Living in a high-poverty area often means a lifetime of struggle with underperforming public schools, limited job opportunities, higher crime rates, and poor nutrition, health care and housing — all of which can add up to a shorter, sicker retirement.
Americans who live in the South can expect to live fewer healthy years past 65 than those who live in other parts of the country, according to a new report from the CDC. Health disparities among seniors in their final years align closely with profound geographical differences in poverty. The region where more than 30 percent of people live in high-poverty areas — dubbed the “poverty belt” by The Atlantic’s Richard Florida, falls right over the states with the lowest healthy life expectancies. As inequality in the U.S. climbs steadily, this public health crisis may only expand.
From the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention site
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Paleo diet for nutrition and long term health?
“the main reason is that early humans did not suffer from those chronic diseases is that they did not live long enough (life expectancy ~30-40 years). They were also physically active and had lower energy intakes than most people do today.”
Good observation
Exercise and a Healthy Diet of Fruits and Vegetables Extends Life Expectancy in Women in Their 70s
From the 29 May 2012 article at Science News Daily
Women in their seventies who exercise and eat healthy amounts of fruits and vegetables have a longer life expectancy, according to research published in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society….
…Researchers at the University of Michigan and Johns Hopkins University studied 713 women aged 70 to 79 years who took part in the Women’s Health and Aging Studies. This study was designed to evaluate the causes and course of physical disability in older women living in the community.
“A number of studies have measured the positive impact of exercise and healthy eating on life expectancy, but what makes this study unique is that we looked at these two factors together,” explains lead author, Dr. Emily J Nicklett, from the University of Michigan School of Social Work.
Researchers found that the women who were most physically active and had the highest fruit and vegetable consumption were eight times more likely to survive the five-year follow-up period than the women with the lowest rates…
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- Exercise and a healthy diet of fruits and vegetables extends life expectancy in women in their 70s (eurekalert.org)
- Popular Ways to Increase Life Expectancy (termlifeinsurance.org)
- Jogging increases life expectancy (toddlohenry.com)
- Study: New Jersey Residents Have Longest Life Expectancy In Nation (newyork.cbslocal.com)
- Life spans in many U.S. counties compare to the poorest nations (kansascity.com)
- Regular jogging shows dramatic increase in life expectancy (esciencenews.com)
- 100 Years of Carrots? How Much Does Diet Really Affect Longevity? (organicauthority.com)
- Leaving the couch, eating more fruits and vegetables may lead to sustained … – CBS News (cbsnews.com)
Social Factors May Affect Lifespan More Than Race, Location
A group of socioeconomic factors such as education, income and work are better indicators of your chances of living to age 70 than race or geography, a new study shows.
The findings challenge the long-held belief that race or the region of the country where you reside are the best markers of how long you may live, according to researchers from Stanford University School of Medicine in Stanford, Calif.
Previous research has found large differences in life expectancy in various regions of the United States. For example, people tend to die younger in large urban areas and in the South. A study published last year found that men in five counties in Mississippi lived an average of 66.5 years, several years less than the national average of 75.4 years for men.
Racial disparities also are a well-established factor in life expectancy. For example, a recent study found that white men live an average of about seven years longer than black men, and white women live about five years longer than black women, according to a Stanford University news release.
In the new study, the researchers examined data on the probability of survival to age 70 for people in counties across the United States. The data was initially categorized according to sex and race, but the researchers then considered how other factors affect life expectancy.
The analysis showed that when factors related to local social conditions — such as education, income, and job and marital status — are included, health differences based on race and region virtually disappear….
Related articles
The Impact Of Socioeconomic Factors On The Racial Gap In Life Expectancy
While I believe there that there is no simple cause-effect explanation for life expectancy, there are striking correlations (as income levels) that need to be addressed to promote justice for all of us…
From the 11 April 2011 article at Medical News Today
Differences in factors such as income, education and marital status could contribute overwhelmingly to the gap in life expectancy between blacks and whites in the United States, according to one of the first studies to put a number on how much of the divide can be attributed to disparities in socioeconomic characteristics.
A Princeton University study recently published in the journal Demography reveals that socioeconomic differences can account for 80 percent of the life-expectancy divide between black and white men, and for 70 percent of the imbalance between black and white women.
Numerous existing studies on the topic have found that mortality differences are associated with certain socioeconomic disparities, but have not determined to what extent the life expectancy gap can be explained by such contrasts, noted author Michael Geruso, a doctoral student in Princeton’s Department of Economics. …
About
This blog presents a sampling of health and medical news and resources for all. Selected articles and resources will hopefully be of general interest but will also encourage further reading through posted references and other links. Currently I am focusing on public health, basic and applied research and very broadly on disease and healthy lifestyle topics.
Several times a month I will post items on international and global health issues. My Peace Corps Liberia experience (1980-81) has formed me as a global citizen in many ways and has challenged me to think of health and other topics in a more holistic manner.
Do you have an informational question in the health/medical area?
Email me at jmflahiff@yahoo.com
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My professional work experience and education includes over 15 years experience as a medical librarian and a Master’s in Library Science. In my most recent position I enjoyed contributing to our library’s blog, performing in depth literature searches, and collaborating with faculty, staff, students, and the general public.
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Health and Medical News and Resources 