American Indicators
Compiled by The Progressive ReviewINDEX HEALTH
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2011
5% of patients account for half of health care spending
Nation’s worst hospitals treat twice the percentage of poor patients and service is likely to get worse
Only 21% of Americans believe fully in evolution
Nine percent of American kids labelled ADHD
Disease clusters found in 13 states
Hunger at highest level in 15 years
90,000 Americans die annually from infections that have become resistant to antibiotics
The stats are for Britain but a fine infographic will show generally one's chances of dying of everything from heart disease to opiates and swine flu.
BBC 2010
Here's one important thing to remember about all medical research. Since 1850, the life expectancy of a white male has increased 37 years and 41 years for a white female, but over half that increase is the result of higher survival rates of those under 30. By the time you reach 70, all the money and effort we have spent on medicine has improved life expectancy by four years. For white males over 60, life expectancy has gone up five years. Yet a major part of pharma marketing is directed to this audience.
U.S. RANKS 42ND IN CHILD MORTALITY; DOWN FROM 29TH TWO DECADES AGO
STUDY: CANADIANS LIVE LONGER & BETTER THAN AMERICANS
2009. . .
U.S. RANKS 42ND IN LIFE EXPECTANCY
THE PRICE OF AVOIDING SOCIALISM BBC ABOUT THAT TERRIBLE BRITISH HEALTH SYSTEM
2008
A new study by The Commonwealth Fund Commission on a High Performance Health System finds that the United States health care system is getting worse, and that despite spending more on health care than any other industrialized nation, the US overall continues to fall far short on key indicators of health outcomes and quality, with particularly low scores on efficiency.
- The number of uninsured and underinsured continues to rise. As of 2007, 42 percent of all working age adults were either uninsured or underinsured-up from 35 percent in the four years since 2003.
- US fell from 15th to last among 19 industrialized nations when it comes to premature deaths that could potentially have been prevented by timely access to effective health care.
- Rates for basic preventive care failed to improve. Currently, only half of all adults receive the recommended preventive health care, including screening for cancer.
- Health insurance premiums rose far faster than wages, rising as a share of median incomes. Yet, insurance protection eroded. By 2007, 41 percent of adults reported that they had medical debt or trouble paying medical bills, up from 34 percent in 2005.
2007
LIFE EXPECTANCY DECLINING IN SOME PARTS OF THE COUNTRY
No one died during 2007 in accidents among larger scheduled U.S. airlines and smaller commuter aircraft, and deaths in private plane accidents dropped to 491, their lowest total in more than 40 years.
THE LIST: ODDS OF DYING IN U.S. BY CAUSE OF DEATH
U.S. HAS SECOND WORST NEWBORN BABY DEATH RATE IN THE DEVELOPED WORLD
CNN - An estimated 2 million babies die within their first 24 hours each year worldwide and the United States has the second worst newborn mortality rate in the developed world, according to a new report. American babies are three times more likely to die in their first month as children born in Japan, and newborn mortality is 2.5 times higher in the United States than in Finland, Iceland or Norway, Save the Children researchers found. Only Latvia, with six deaths per 1,000 live births, has a higher death rate for newborns than the United States, which is tied near the bottom of industrialized nations with Hungary, Malta, Poland and Slovakia with five deaths per 1,000 births.
WASH CYCLE OFFERS some fascinating statistics on the dangers of various modes of transit based on fatalities per mile. As you can see from the figures for pedestrians, fatalities per hour might be a more accurate way of figuring it out, but it's still interesting:
School Bus 0.02
Charter/tour bus 0.12
Commuter bus 0.24
Van 0.44 SUV 0.82
Other truck 1.03
Car 1.04
Pickup truck 1.12
Bicycle 5.58
Walk 19.73
Motorcycle 31.91http://washcycle.typepad.com/2006. . .
ABOUT TWO THIRDS OF Americans support doctor-assisted suicide, according to a Gallup poll.
From 1993 to 2003, the U.S. population grew by 12 percent but emergency room visits grew by 27 percent, from 90 million to 114 million. In that same period, however, 425 emergency departments closed, along with about 700 hospitals and nearly 200,000 beds. - Washington Post
WASHINGTON TIMES - The 12 percent of the U.S. population 65 and older accounted for one-third of all hospital admissions in 2003, federal data revealed Tuesday. . . The most common procedure performed on elderly patients was blood transfusion, according to the study, and 60 percent of all blood transfusions are performed on elderly patients. . . The most common reasons elderly patients were hospitalized were congestive heart failure, pneumonia, coronary atherosclerosis, cardiac dysrhythmias, and acute myocardial infarction or heart attack. When elderly patients do go to the hospital, they are five times likelier to die than younger patients, the agency said.
http://washtimes.com/upi/20060516-125819-7266r.htm
AP - America may be the world's superpower, but its survival rate for newborn babies ranks near the bottom among modern nations, better only than Latvia. Among 33 industrialized nations, the United States is tied with Hungary, Malta, Poland and Slovakia with a death rate of nearly 5 per 1,000 babies, according to a new report. Latvia's rate is 6 per 1,000.
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/health/3850137.html
IN THE PAST 50 year, medicine and changes in lifestyle has increased the lifespan of a 65 year old man by only 3.7 years.
BEST AND WORST STATES FOR EMERGENCY MEDICAL CARE AS RATED BY THE AMERICAN COLLEGE OF EMERGENCY PHYSICIANS which was too polite to point out that every one of the best states - save South Carolina - is a so-called blue state and every one of the worst states is a so-called red state. 2005
JOHN BUNTIN, GOVERNING - Every year, an estimated 2 million Americans - approximately 5 percent of hospital patients - contract a hospital-acquired infection during the course of a hospital stay. Some 90,000 of them die - more than the number of people who die from breast cancer or automobile accidents. And the situation is getting worse. Since 1975, the infection rate has escalated by 36 percent.
Average total cost for an 80-year-old American to live out the rest of his or her days on a luxury cruise ship: $230,497
Average cost to live them out in an assisted-living facility: $228,075
[Harper's Index]
2004
STUDY DOCUMENTS INCREASE IN CALORIE CONSUMPTION
ANAHAD O'CONNOR, NY TIMES - From 1971 to 2000, the study found, women increased their caloric intake by 22 percent, men by 7 percent. Much of the change was found to be due to an increase in the amount of carbohydrates we have been eating. . . And while the percentage of calories Americans get from fat, especially saturated fats, has decreased, the numbers might be deceiving. The actual amount of fat eaten daily has gone up. It just makes up a smaller percentage of the total caloric pie now that we are eating so many more carbs.
. . . Cookies, pasta, soda and other carbohydrates appear to be mostly to blame. Among women, carbohydrates jumped from about 45 percent of the daily caloric intake to almost 52 percent. For men, they grew from 42 percent to 49 percent.
According to the National Institutes of Health, the average person passes intestinal gas from 14 to 23 times a day and produces about 1 to 3 pints of the stuff. That may be more than you expect. Many people who believe that they are excessively gassy actually have perfectly ordinary amounts, says Steven Edmundowicz, MD, chief of endoscopy at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. [WEb MD]
2003
THE AMERICAN WAY OF DEATH
AMERICA'S GROWING HYPOCHONDRIA - spurred by government, health industry, and the media - takes another leap as the feds declare nearly twice as many people as previously to have excessive blood pressure. Scaring people about their health is one of the country's most profitable industries, but it also drives up health costs something fierce. Here are a few facts, based on the most recent government statistics, to bear in mind when reading these stories:
- The average life span of an American is 28 years longer than a century ago.
- 75% of that improvement occurred between 1900 and 1950, the remaining 25% has been fairly equally distributed over the last 50 years.
In short, medicine has done a fine job of improving America's longevity but it is slowing down. The hyping of health problems - and declaring tens of millions of people to be ill or health-impaired for one reason or another - reflects far more a cultural and commercial choice rather than a health one. And it is a choice far healthier for drug companies than for citizens.
For example, in a study not well covered in the American media (perhaps because it challenges our health myths), WHO in 2000 ranked countries by "healthy life expectancy," based on the number of years lived in what might called "full health" - without disability or crippling illnesses. WHO reported:
"Japanese have the longest healthy life expectancy of 74.5 years among 191 countries, versus less than 26 years for the lowest-ranking country of Sierra Leone. . . The rest of the top 10 nations are Australia, 73.2 years; France, 73.1; Sweden, 73.0; Spain, 72.8; Italy, 72.7; Greece, 72.5; Switzerland, 72.5; Monaco, 72.4; and Andorra, 72.3. . .
"The United States rated 24th under this system, or an average of 70.0 years of healthy life for babies born in 1999. . . "The position of the United States is one of the major surprises of the new rating system," says Christopher Murray, M.D., Ph.D., Director of WHO's Global Program on Evidence for Health Policy. "Basically, you die earlier and spend more time disabled if you're an American rather than a member of most other advanced countries."
The fascinating thing about this is that among the top-rated countries are ones like France who citizens take a decidedly less paranoiac view of health issues than Americans who are trained to worry about their every breath.
But then what can you expect in a country where the vice president argues his fitness for public office by announcing that a doctor "watches me very carefully" 24 hours a day? - SAM SMITH
TEN MOST DANGEROUS JOBS IN AMERICA
[Notably missing from the list are police officers who, it turns out, contrary to myth, live less dangerously than pizza deliverers]
CNN - The mortality rate among lumbermen, 118 timber cutters per 100,000 workers, heads the list of the top 10 most dangerous jobs in America for 2002 put out by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, and was more than 26 times that of the average U.S. worker. The fishing industry ran second with 71 fatalities per 100,000 workers, with drowning the most common cause of death. . . Flight risk Another often owner-operated job -- commercial pilot -- comes in third on the list of the country's most dangerous jobs, with 70 fatalities per 100,000 workers. . . Other highly dangerous jobs, including construction trades, pay high wages. Fourth on the fatality list, structural metal workers, the steel workers who build our skyscrapers and bridges, died at the rate of 58 per 100,000 in 2002, and earned an average of about $20 per hour. Sixth were roofers (37 per 100,000 and $16 per hour), and seventh were electrical power installers (32 per 100,000 and $21 per hour). Construction laborers suffered 28 fatal injuries per 100,000 last year (ninth), and were paid about $13.36 per hour.
One top-10 surprise was the fifth place finisher -- driver-sales workers, which, according to a BLS spokesperson, includes pizza delivers, vending machine fillers, and the like. Again, these workers are often self employed. . . Farm workers come in eighth on the BLS list with 28 fatalities per 100,000. According to the Department of Agriculture farmhands earned roughly $8.50 an hour in 2002.
HEALTH COSTS COMPARED - A comparison of health care costs has found that 31 cents of every dollar spent on health care in the United States pays administrative costs, nearly double the rate in Canada. Researchers who prepared the comparison said today that the United States wasted more money on health bureaucracy than it would cost to provide health care to the tens of millions of the uninsured. Americans spend $752 more per person per year than Canadians in administrative costs, investigators from Harvard and the Canadian Institute for Health Information found.
HOW MANY POISONS IN YOUR BODY?
