America is not healthy
Between 2022 and 2023, there were 1.5 million excess deaths in the US. These are people who would be alive if the US mortality rate were comparable to other industrialized nations.
“The authors agree that further research is needed to fully understand the driving factors behind excess mortality, but suggest looking to other nations for inspiration on successful social programs would be a good start.
“However, recent policy decisions by the Trump administration have [Dr Jacob Bor, associate professor of global health and epidemiology at Boston University School of Public Health] concerned for the future.
“Deep cuts to public health, scientific research, safety net programs, environmental regulations, and federal health data could lead to a further widening of health disparities between the US and other wealthy nations, and growing numbers of excess – and utterly preventable – deaths to Americans.”
“Imagine the lives saved, the grief and trauma averted, if the US simply performed at the average of our peers,” Bor added. “One out of every two US deaths under 65 years is likely avoidable. Our failure to address this is a national scandal.”
And the House just approved a budget that increases that scandal. Shame.
US mortality rates are a national scandal
“The authors agree that further research is needed to fully understand the driving factors behind excess mortality, but suggest looking to other nations for inspiration on successful social programs would be a good start.
“However, recent policy decisions by the Trump administration have [Dr Jacob Bor, associate professor of global health and epidemiology at Boston University School of Public Health] concerned for the future.
“Deep cuts to public health, scientific research, safety net programs, environmental regulations, and federal health data could lead to a further widening of health disparities between the US and other wealthy nations, and growing numbers of excess – and utterly preventable – deaths to Americans.”
“Imagine the lives saved, the grief and trauma averted, if the US simply performed at the average of our peers,” Bor added. “One out of every two US deaths under 65 years is likely avoidable. Our failure to address this is a national scandal.”
And the House just approved a budget that increases that scandal. Shame.
US mortality rates are a national scandal
Joel:
That IFL site is rather interesting. I spent about 20 minutes reading various articles in it. There was a lot of resistance to doing anything which would help people evade Covid, It was a, “you can not impinge upon my freedoms as I am a dumb-ass US Citizen who has rights.
I do not believe they ever gave thought that such a right to do whatever during a pandemic might include dying. And Trump will help them right down the path of their right to an unexpected event of death.
We will do it again too.
There is one doctor indicating that these excess deaths are coming from policy, not individual acts and later another one cites gun violence, drug overdoses, car collisions and cardiometabolic disease. Seems to me that all of these have pretty high individual input – not exclusive, but appreciably more than COVID and other serious communicable disease have. And where there could be policy mitigations, it wouldn’t necessarily be part of healthcare spending. I spent years in data heavy jobs and I’m suspicious of the utility of suggesting an “excess” from 1980 to 2023. That’s more than 50% of an average lifespan. You can declare any data as excess if you pick some lower data. Also an end date of 2023 is before any changes to science research funding, includes expanded Medicaid, and ACA. I suspect that the US population is very distinct from the reference populations somehow.
@Eric,
Got data?
that 1.5 million was for 2022-2023. not from 1980-2023.
and i am not so sure that it wasn’t from personal choices, after all i can recall a lot of people during covid day that they would do nothing to protect themselves, or others, and were in the hospital dying from Covid saying hey didnt believe that it existed
David:
Thanks for the correction. I am sure Eric will correct it.