I wasn't surprised to read this article on WebMD last week about a study that shows that life expectancies in most U.S. counties are lagging far behind other countries. I understand the four reasons given that we're behind Spain, Norway, France, and Canada to name just 4 of the 36 countries that have a higher life expectancy than men and women in the United States: Income and education, access to healthcare, quality of healthcare, and preventable risk factors.
After I finished obsessing over the amazing animated map that shows, among other things, that in 2007, Morgan County WV men on average can expect to live to 74.1, and that Slovenia and Oman have better life expectancies than that, I decided to read the PDF of the study for more detail. I browsed through, reading that the geographic disparities in life expectancies vary more in the US than in Canada (which has a lot more wilderness than the US), more than 85% of US counties have fallen behind instead of catching up or doing better than other countries between 2000 and 2007, and despite all this, we outspend every country on healthcare. I finally reached the end where I read the sobering words "Given the poor performance of the US on health outcomes, a performance that is worsening each year, it is time for new thinking targeted to where the biggest impact can be made on health outcomes." Well, duh!
Preventable risk factors, according to the study summarized in the article, is the number one reason we are so behind. Smoking and obesity are the biggest risk factors that could prevent chronic illnesses such as diabetes, cancer, and heart disease. Other countries are doing much more than we are to encourage their citizens to give up bad habits, sometimes to the point of enforcing good health habits. For example, when obesity rates in France started to climb, the French passed laws that prohibited the sale of junk food in their schools, levied a tax on food companies that didn't encourage healthy eating, and banned misleading food advertising. French politicians considered the obesity rate to be so critical that they got local communities to govern their overweight and obesity levels in a program called Epode (this is a translated page, so excuse some of the awkward language!). Epode, from what I can gather, made everyone in a community a stakeholder in their fight against obesity. Leaders were held responsible for their community's progress. Allowing communities to direct their own program also allowed for cultural differences, so there was no directed format from the national government. Obesity was lowered by 25% in some communities in the 6 years the program's been running, and is considered a success.
The fact that we are finally putting really scary warnings on cigarettes makes me hopeful that perhaps our health leaders are paying attention. I hope states will go further and jack up the tax on these cancer sticks. And the next time I see one of those ads decrying possible taxes levied on soda, I just might write a letter to Congress encouraging them to do so. The woman in this ad insinuates that the government is telling us how to eat and drink with taxes. Americans Against Food Taxes, the organization that paid for the ad, is made up of all my love-to-hates: Burger King, Coca-Cola, Domino's Pizza, Wendy's.... who of course don't want you to spend your dollars on healthy food! Why these companies don't start offering more healthy food, with the unhealthy stuff as a minority of the menu, only makes me think they really are the devil that's trying to fatten us up so we can sizzle better in Hell in the name of "the gov'munt can't tell me what to eat!"
Realizing that most citizens are against government intervention makes me realize, sadly, that we have become a country that really does not care about each other. Being healthy doesn't just benefit the individual. Being a healthy individual has a profound ripple effect. Remember that elementary school teacher that missed more than half a year because she was sick all the time? Remember how miserable your kid was when substitute after substitute was marched in to babysit the kids? And what about the cost of taking care those patients chronically ill with a preventable illness? According to the study, the US outspends every single country in healthcare. I'm sure we can all think of someone in our community who smoked themselves into the lung cancer ward, or lives on oxygen. Or needs a scooter because they're too obese to manage the supermarket aisles. Who do you think is paying for that? It's us, folks. Us. Our tax dollars pay for Medicare and Medicaid; our health insurance premiums go up with the cost of healthcare. I'm not saying we should begrudge these victims their healthcare. I'm saying let's have fewer victims. We should be throwing some of that money into prevention, and enacting some real regulations that prevent poor health.
Healthcare providers can only do so much. You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink water instead of soda pop. And, believe it or not, there isn't a pill that can fix everything. Until people start taking their health seriously, we will continue to outspend every country on the globe and die earlier from preventable diseases before most of them.
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