US health: Die Easy

[Skybird]

http://www.news.vcu.edu/news/America...come_Countries

On average, Americans die sooner and experience higher rates of disease and injury than people in other high-income countries, says a new report from the National Research Council and Institute of Medicine. The report finds that this health disadvantage exists at all ages from birth to age 75 and that even advantaged Americans – those who have health insurance, college educations, higher incomes and healthy behaviors – appear to be sicker than their peers in other rich nations.

“We were struck by the gravity of these findings,” said Steven H. Woolf, M.D., professor of family medicine in the Virginia Commonwealth University School of Medicine and chair of the panel that wrote the report. “Americans are dying and suffering at rates that we know are unnecessary because people in other high-income countries are living longer lives and enjoying better health. What concerns our panel is why, for decades, we have been slipping behind.”

I would have expected these findings as a general tendency, but that it is not just a trend but such a massive, substantial finding that puts the US explicitly on the last ranks in almost all categories they examined, then surprised me a bit.

German pointer:
http://www.welt.de/gesundheit/articl...n-sterben.html