Update: Life expectancy in U.S. trails top nations
Thursday, June 16, 2011 at 9:05AM New analysis of government data shows that the U.S. is once again lagging behind in health. On a county to county basis, many demographics are lagging behind Switzerland, Australia, Japan, and Canada.
With consistant evidence and hard data pointing to changes in diet, exercise and personal habits having a dramatic effect on health; this study further shows that something as simple as diet and smoking tobacco can have extremely negative long-term consequences to our longevity, and heath, further taxing our health care system.
Life expectancy in most U.S. counties lags behind that of the world's healthiest nations, in some cases by 50 years or more, according to a new analysis of government data.
For instance, in Holmes County, Mississippi, which has the lowest life expectancy in the country, a woman can expect to live 73.5 years, the average life span that women in the healthiest nations had in 1957 and have since far surpassed.
To determine how American life spans stack up internationally, researchers from the U.S. and the U.K. compared life expectancies in the U.S. to a moving average of those in the 10 nations with the lowest death rates, a group that includes other affluent countries such as Switzerland, Australia, Japan, and Canada.
The authors suggest that smoking, obesity, high blood pressure, and other behaviors and conditions that contribute to poor health and early deaths might be responsible.
Locally tailored programs that aim to help people quit smoking, lose weight, and otherwise improve their health may help reverse the troubling life-expectancy trends, they say.