This is a cherry picked statistic. We still have lower life expectancy, high infant mortality rates, and one of the highest rate of preventable and treatable deaths among developed countries

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caseysoftware a day ago | parent | next [-]

The unfortunate truth is that if you break life expectancy out by ethnicity, it tells a different story. Generally Asians, Latinos, and Whites are above while Blacks and Native Americans are below and pull down the average: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9256789/#S12 If you break the groups out and individually compare against countries of similiar ethnicity, the US is often ahead.

For infant mortality specifically, in the US we count every baby with a sign of life, regardless of the age. In many developed countries, they simply don't count too premature (under 22 weeks or 500 grams, iirc) and therefore don't consider them in the metrics. It makes for an apples to oranges comparison.

You're right on "preventable and treatable deaths" with heart disease and diabetes being the biggest contributors. The question for that comes down to "is that a result of systemic issues or individual choices?" because we can do lots about one of those.

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soundwave106 a day ago | parent | next [-]

Um... really?

When I Googled life expectancy by ethnic group in the United States, it gave me the following numbers:

Asian: 85.2 years

Hispanic: 81.3 years

White: 78.4 years

Black: 74.0 years

American Indian and Alaska Native (AIAN): 70.1 years

Along with a source. (https://www.kff.org/racial-equity-and-health-policy/racial-d...) (Note: Based on the source, these numbers are for 2023.)

Overall, life expectancy in the United States in the last few years is around 79ish per the sources listed here in this Wiki article: (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_life_expe...)

This means that the average life expectancy of white Americans is actually slightly below the average life expectancy of all Americans.

Incidentally, while a lot of developed countries do not track life expectancy by ethnicity, the UK seems to have a few some studies. (https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsde...) Though the data is very old (2011-2014), and the data is broken out by sex with no summaries, whites actually fare the worst. Black African females came out at the top, with a life expectancy of 88.9. I asked Google's search what the comparable black American female life expectancy was in 2011, and it gave me 78.2, along with a link. (https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm6244a8.htm)

Our overall ranking generally is below all "developed countries" that I can see, which range from Germany (~80) to the ~84 of "developed" countries like Japan, Switzerland, and Sweden (along with a few countries still classified as "developing" like Kuwait). It's not completely terrible, but considering how much the United States spends on health care, that's quite a poor value.

There are multiple identified factors for explaining life expectancy, but access to healthcare is identified as a very significant factor. In a system, like America, that is very expensive (likely due to highly inefficient, over-bureaucratic, overly complex, and over-quasi-monopolized systems) and without universal coverage, it follows that those who are poorer may not have the same access to healthcare and may succumb to entirely curable illnesses. So I don't think it's a coincidence that the racial breakdown above almost matches the median ethnic household income (the median white American household earns more than the median Hispanic household, but elsewise it aligns).

On infant mortality, at least one link I found -- https://www.healthsystemtracker.org/chart-collection/infant-... -- which adjusted data due to the reported difference, and still found significantly higher infant mortality in the United States. Though the data is a little old (2016).

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tptacek a day ago | parent [-]

Cite the source for "access to healthcare" as a "very significant factor" in US life expectancy? We have pretty good numbers on the mortality cause differences between the US and other countries and they don't align with this claim (unless you're doing some bank-shot argument about how access to health care makes our car crashes more lethal or something).

You'd want to be looking for a scholarly source that puts numbers on this. It's been done! As I noted elsewhere on the thread, the study we're commenting on is based on 1990s numbers about differing mortality of the uninsured. But here you're looking breakdowns of all mortality causes and tying them to insurance, a trickier proposition. Will be interested in whatever you come up with.

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soundwave106 7 hours ago | parent [-]

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK62376/

	▲	tptacek 13 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		This article repeatedly makes the point I made; I assume you cited it to back me up?

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smallmancontrov 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

> they simply don't count too premature (under 22 weeks or 500 grams, iirc) and therefore don't consider them in the metrics

Nope, that's not the reason.

> The U.S. infant mortality rate was still higher than for most Europeancountries when births at less than 22 weeks of gestation were excluded.

https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/databriefs/db23.pdf

Statistical hustling is common, but the most usual form is that the US excludes uninsured individuals to make itself look like it belongs in the developed country cluster.

	▲	tptacek 14 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		No, the uninsured are included in both infant mortality and, even more obviously, death statistics.

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tptacek a day ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Life expectancy differences between the US and other countries are dominated by just a few factors:

* Car accidents, because we drive much more and are much more spread out than other countries.

* Drug overdoses, though other countries are starting to catch up to us there.

* Homicide, because of our gun policy and the universality of firearms (which also bears on our suicide stats).

* CVD.

That last item sounds like an indictment of the US health care system, but it isn't. If you break CVD out by state, northeastern states like Massachusetts have outcomes resembling the Nordics, and Mississippi has outcomes like a developing country. But the structure of the health care system is the same in both places.

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ryanackley 3 hours ago | parent [-]

I'm sure there are qualifiers and rationalizations when comparing cancer survival statistics as well. As someone already pointed out, uninsured Americans aren't necessarily included. They cited sources, you rebutted without sources.

I believe a single payer system is a matter of when not if. It works just fine in other countries. In our country, the healthcare industry has evolved into extracting as many dollars as it can from the economy. This is because when someone is sick and needs treatment, healthcare providers hold all of the cards.

	▲	tptacek 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Uninsured Americans are in fact universally included in death statistics and in cancer survival outcomes; we have top-tier cancer outcomes. Europe has several universal coverage systems without single payer. The original sin of the US system isn't private insurance, it's employment-based coverage; that's the thing nobody else has.

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loeg 15 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Our life expectancy and infant mortality rates are downstream of driving a lot of miles and unhealthy behaviors (mostly diet and exercise) of American mothers (i.e., obesity). Those are things it would be good to improve, but it isn't the fault of the ER or L&D departments or their billing models that people get in car accidents or mothers are obese.

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a day ago | parent | prev | next [-]

[deleted]

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HDThoreaun a day ago | parent | prev [-]

Life expectancy tells you very little about healthcare without controlling for confoudners