US Ranks Last on Preventable Deaths

[Toro]

January 8, 2008, Bethesda, MD—The United States places last among 19 countries when it comes to deaths that could have been prevented by access to timely and effective health care, according to new research supported by The Commonwealth Fund and published in the January/February issue of Health Affairs. While other nations dramatically improved these rates between 1997–98 and 2002–03, the U.S. improved only slightly.

If the U.S. had performed as well as the top three countries out of the19 industrialized countries in the study there would have been 101,000 fewer deaths in the U.S. per year by the end of the study period. The top performers were France, Japan, and Australia.

In “Measuring the Health of Nations: Updating an Earlier Analysis,” Ellen Nolte and Martin McKee of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine compare trends in deaths that could have been prevented by access to timely and effective health care. Specifically, they looked at deaths “amenable to health care before age 75 between 1997–98 and 2002–03.”

Nolte and McKee found that while other countries made strides and saw these types of deaths decline by an average of 16%, the U.S. experienced only a 4% decline. “It is notable that all countries have improved substantially except the U.S.,” said Nolte, lead author of the study. The authors also note that “it is difficult to disregard the observation that the slow decline in U.S. amenable mortality has coincided with an increase in the uninsured population, an issue that is now receiving renewed attention in several states and among presidential candidates from both parties.”

“It is startling to see the U.S. falling even farther behind on this crucial indicator of health system performance,” said Commonwealth Fund Senior Vice President Cathy Schoen. “By focusing on deaths amenable to health care, Nolte and McKee strip out factors such as population and lifestyle differences that are often cited in response to international comparisons showing the U.S. lagging in health outcomes. The fact that other countries are reducing these preventable deaths more rapidly, yet spending far less, indicates that policy, goals, and efforts to improve health systems make a difference.”

In 1997–98 the U.S. ranked 15th out of 19 countries on the “mortality amenable to health care” measure. However, by 2002–03 the U.S. fell to last place, with 109 deaths amenable to health care for every 100,000 people. In contrast, mortality rates per 100,000 people in the leading countries were: France (64), Japan (71), and Australia (71). The other countries included in the study were Austria, Canada, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden and the United Kingdom.

Study authors state that the measure of deaths amenable to health care is a valuable indicator of health system performance because it is sensitive to improved care, including public health initiatives. It considers a range of conditions from which it is reasonable to expect death to be averted even after the condition develops. This includes causes such as appendicitis and hypertension, where the medical nature of the intervention is apparent; it also includes illnesses that can be detected early with effective screenings such as cervical or colon cancer, and tuberculosis which, while acquisition is largely driven by socio-economic conditions, is not fatal when treated in a timely manner.

“Cross-national studies conducted by The Commonwealth Fund indicate that our failure to cover all Americans results in financial barriers that are much more likely to prevent many U.S. adults from getting the care they need, compared with adults in other countries,” said Commonwealth Fund President Karen Davis. “While no one country provides a perfect model of care, there are many lessons to be learned from the strategies at work abroad.”

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2008-01/lsoh-url010408.php

 

[Dr Grump]

Where are the "socialised medicine sux" crowd now??

 

[CSM]

Where are the "socialised medicine sux" crowd now??

This has been done to death on this board (pun intended).

Of course we all notice the mass exodus of US citizens because of the horrible conditions here.

 

[CSM]

Here is a different point of view:

http://drugwonks.com/2007/08/what_paris_hilton_and_the_commonwealth_fund_have_in_common.html

 

[Bern80]

Where are the "socialised medicine sux" crowd now??

And exactley what correlation do you believe there is between the two? I challenge you to show that preventative medicine is somehow intertwined in the systems of countries that do have socialized medicine.

 

[Psychoblues]

The very first paragraph spells it out. This is not a poll. This is scientific.

"The United States places last among 19 countries when it comes to deaths that could have been prevented by access to timely and effective health care, according to new research supported by The Commonwealth Fund and published in the January/February issue of Health Affairs. While other nations dramatically improved these rates between 1997–98 and 2002–03, the U.S. improved only slightly."

Any complications with that analogy? I suggest there will be but it will be mostly from the reich wing pharmacy and other anti health care nuts.

 

[rayboyusmc]

We don't have the best healthcare system by a long shot. We pay more and get less back. I believe we are also the only major country that lets drug companies advertize their wares on TV.

Did you know there is one drug salesperson for every 11 doctors?

The current system is broken. I worked for a major Managed Care Organization for seven years. There are a lot of hard working people just like most companies, but the botom line is too often improved by less care.

I know that WHO is a commie pinko organization, but here is some data to mull over.

WORLD HEALTH ORGANIZATION
ASSESSES THE WORLD'S HEALTH SYSTEMS

The World Health Organization has carried out the first ever analysis of the world’s health systems. Using five performance indicators to measure health systems in 191 member states, it finds that France provides the best overall health care followed among major countries by Italy, Spain, Oman, Austria and Japan.

The findings are published today, 21 June, in The World Health Report 2000 – Health systems: Improving performance.

The U. S. health system spends a higher portion of its gross domestic product than any other country but ranks 37 out of 191 countries according to its performance, the report finds. The United Kingdom, which spends just six percent of gross domestic product (GDP) on health services, ranks 18th . Several small countries – San Marino, Andorra, Malta and Singapore are rated close behind second- placed Italy.

WHO Director-General Dr Gro Harlem Brundtland says: "The main message from this report is that the health and well-being of people around the world depend critically on the performance of the health systems that serve them. Yet there is wide variation in performance, even among countries with similar levels of income and health expenditure. It is essential for decision- makers to understand the underlying reasons so that system performance, and hence the health of populations, can be improved."

Dr Christopher Murray, Director of WHO’s Global Programme on Evidence for Health Policy. says: "Although significant progress has been achieved in past decades, virtually all countries are underutilizing the resources that are available to them. This leads to large numbers of preventable deaths and disabilities; unnecessary suffering, injustice, inequality and denial of an individual’s basic rights to health."

The impact of failures in health systems is most severe on the poor everywhere, who are driven deeper into poverty by lack of financial protection against ill- health, the report says.

"The poor are treated with less respect, given less choice of service providers and offered lower- quality amenities," says Dr Brundtland. "In trying to buy health from their own pockets, they pay and become poorer."

http://www.photius.com/rankings/healthranks.html

 

[waltky]

They'll grow up in poverty, but at least they'll be healthy...

New UN Strategy Could Save Two Million Children A Year
April 12, 2013 — The World Health Organization and U.N. Children's Fund are unveiling a new strategy to end preventable child deaths from pneumonia and diarrhea by 2025. The agencies say this new plan of action potentially could save the lives of up to two million young children each year.

Pneumonia and diarrhea are two leading killers of young children. Together, they account for nearly one-third of all the deaths of children under five years old in developing countries. Nearly 90 percent of the two million annual child deaths from these two diseases occur in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia. Health agencies say children are dying from these preventable diseases because effective interventions are not reaching them or are not being provided equitably across all communities.

Elizabeth Mason, director of the World Health Organization's Department of Maternal, Newborn, Child and Adolescent Health, says pneumonia and diarrhea are currently treated separately. She says evidence from countries such as Bangladesh, Ethiopia, and Tanzania show it makes good health and economic sense to tackle these diseases together. She says many factors contribute to pneumonia or diarrhea, so no single intervention can effectively prevent, treat or control these two conditions. She says the new approach involves putting the known interventions into one comprehensive, integrated package. “Current interventions, such as exclusive breast-feeding, good under-five good nutrition for children, hand washing, safe drinking water, improved cook stoves, environmental pollution, zinc, oral rehydration solution, antibiotics, such as amoxicillin, vitamin A, and vaccination need correct and consistent and sustained use,” said Mason.

Filipino mothers carry their babies outside a health center in Taguig, south of Manila, Philippines.

Vaccines against pneumonia and diarrhea are not affordable in many developing countries. The GAVI Alliance, a public-private partnership, provides funding that increases access to immunization in developing countries. To date, GAVI has helped 24 poor countries immunize 13 million children with pneumococcal vaccines to prevent pneumonia and 13 countries with rotavirus vaccines to immunize five million children against diarrhea. GAVI welcomes the WHO/UNICEF integrated global action plan and says it hopes to accelerate affordable access to these life-saving vaccines by developing countries.

WHO’s Mason believes the targets set by the new integrated approach for ending preventable child deaths from pneumonia and diarrhea by 2025 are achievable. “In this respect, we are saying that pneumonia in children under five, there should be no fewer than three per thousand deaths and for diarrhea fewer than one per thousand deaths, which is totally less than four per thousand deaths from these two diseases," explained Mason. "And, we believe that in a further 10 years, we should be able to have no deaths from diarrhea and pneumonia.” Dr. Mason says it will cost just over $6 billion to implement the strategy over a 10-year period. She says that comes to just about $600 million a year. She notes the return from this relatively small amount of money is huge in terms of millions of children’s lives saved.

Source