Americans die younger than others in rich nations?

Is it our ethnic mix — and the lack of it in other developed countries?

[USA Today]

4 responses to “Americans die younger than others in rich nations?

  1. All the countries ahead of the USA are white, nearly homogeneous western European countries. In the USA, white Americans of western European stock live longer than they do in the old country but they’re only about half the population. The USA has people of other backgrounds who have much shorter lives and, often, live dangerously. For example, the leading cause of death of American black males is homicide. So that part of the US population should be compared with African countries, etc.

    It’s like comparing apples with tutti frutti.

  2. Violence is what makes the difference. If you exclude homicide (which isn’t a reflection on the US health care system). The US has the highest life expectancy in the world.

  3. Actually, the leading cause of Black deaths in America is abortion. Now there are those who call that murder. But homicide is the cause of 5% of Black deaths.

  4. I’ve also seen some stats that the US counts as live-births some very premature babies who die shortly afterward. This is a small but very real skew on our longevity stats and a major skew of our infant-mortality stats.
    We do have more trauma and its related deaths and we do have some problems with lifestyle-related mortality, like dying young due to drug abuse. They are reflections on our society rather than on our healthcare.
    We have faster response times to serious diagnoses like cancer or heart disease and our five-year cancer rates are generally better than in Western Europe.

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