New study highlights how little bang US gets for the bucks it spends on healthcare

By Elaine WATSON

- Last updated on GMT

New study highlights how little bang US gets for the bucks it spends on healthcare
A major new study exploring the health status of people in 34 OECD countries (Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development) from 1990-2010 has revealed that the US has not kept pace with other wealthy nations when it comes to improving the health of its population.

The authors of the study - 'The State of US Health, 1990-2010: Burden of Diseases, Injuries, and Risk Factors' - published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) today - write: “The US spends the most per capita on health care across all countries, lacks universal health coverage, and lags behind other high-income countries for life expectancy and many other health outcome measures.

“High costs with mediocre population health outcomes at the national level are compounded by marked disparities across communities, socioeconomic groups, and race and ethnicity groups.”

The researchers found that US life expectancy increased from 75.2 years in 1990 to 78.2 years in 2010. However, over the 20-year period studied, the US slipped down the rankings when it came to many key measures of health status.

For example, its ranking for age-standardized death rate dropped from 18th to 27th​ out of the 34 OECD countries; for age-standardized YLL (years of life lost due to premature mortality) it dropped from 23rd to 28th ​; for age-standardized years lived with disability it went from 5th to 6th​; for life expectancy at birth it dropped from 20th to 27th​; and finally for healthy life expectancy it dropped from 14th to 26th ​in the ranking.

In an accompanying editorial, Harvey V. Fineberg, M.D., Ph.D., of the Institute of Medicine, Washington, D.C., said: “Despite a level of health expenditures that would have seemed unthinkable a generation ago, the health of the US population has improved only gradually and has fallen behind the pace of progress in many other wealthy nations.”

The top 10 risk factors for health loss in 2010 and the number of deaths attributable to each in the US were:

  • Dietary risks 678,282
  • Smoking 465,651
  • High blood pressure 442,656
  • High body mass index 363,991 
  • Physical inactivity 234,022 
  • High blood sugar 213,669 
  • High total cholesterol 158,431 
  • Ambient air pollution 103,027 
  • Alcohol use 88,587 
  • Drug use 25,430

 Click here​ for full details.

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