The US leads in another health statistic: mortality ages 10-24

The US leads in another health statistic: mortality ages 10-24

  April 25, 2012 at 12:12 pm

  Kevin Outterson

From The Economist:

UPDATE: based on a 2011 Lancet article, abstract here

@koutterson

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  Health Policy
- Comments (16)
- by love actuary on April 25th, 2012 at 12:37
  
  I suppose we are left to figure out the health statistic among the results by comparing the grey-shaded area? I think of this as more of an ‘idiot-statistic’ since we clearly outperform in ‘traffic accidents + violence’ …
  
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  - by Kevin Outterson on April 25th, 2012 at 21:37
    
    Sorry about that; I just posted the link to the Lancet abstract. You’ll need full access to answer your question.
    
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- by DdoubleP on April 25th, 2012 at 12:58
  
  It’s a shame that the original source is gated. I’d be interested to learn what is in the “other” category.
  
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  - by Kevin Outterson on April 25th, 2012 at 22:25
    
    The Lancet article itself is free with registration
    
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    by Kenneth Thomas on April 26th, 2012 at 10:34
    
    Kevin, I registered at Lancet, but that article is (as far as I can tell) just about data sources for the health of 10-24 year olds. The data for the Economist’s table is not in that article. What am I missing?
    
    I am guessing that “other” is disease.
    
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    by Kevin Outterson on April 26th, 2012 at 10:40
    
    Several of us agree – perhaps The Economist sourced a different Lancet article. In any event, all of the data appears to come from WHO.
    
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    by Kenneth Thomas on April 26th, 2012 at 10:44
    
    Are you also agreeing that “other” is disease? Thanks.
    
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    by Marc Brown on April 26th, 2012 at 12:15
    
    From http://mchb.hrsa.gov/chusa11/hstat/hsa/pages/229am.html
    
    (US data)
    
    In 2007, the latest year for which data are available, 13,299 adolescents aged 15 to 19 years died of various causes, representing a rate of 61.9 per 100,000. Unintentional injury was the leading cause of death, followed by homicide, suicide, cancer, and heart disease. Together, these causes account for 84.3 percent of deaths in this age group, although nearly half of all adolescent deaths are attributable to unintentional injury.
    
    Leading Causes of Death Among Adolescents Aged 15-19 Years, by Sex, 2007
    Percent of deaths among adolescent males:
    
    Unintentional injury: 47.5
    Homicide: 20.2
    Suicide: 12.8
    Cancer: 4.1
    Heart disease: 2.4
    All others*: 12.9
    Percent of deaths among adolescent females:
    
    Unintentional injury: 52.2
    Homicide: 7.8
    Suicide: 7.4
    Cancer: 7.0
    Heart disease: 3.1
    All others*: 22.6
    
    *Includes congenital anomalies, cerebrovascular diseases, chronic lower respiratory disease (males), pregnancy and childbirth (females), diabetes (males), influenza and pneumonia (females), septicemia, and all other causes not specified
    
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- by Theodore Whitfield on April 25th, 2012 at 13:16
  
  It’s not clear how this chart tells us anything about the US *healthcare* system, since the majority of the US deaths were due to either traffic accidents, violence, or suicide.
  
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  - by Kevin Outterson on April 25th, 2012 at 21:30
    
    You are right. I called it a health statistic, not a health care statistic.
    
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- by Marc Brown on April 25th, 2012 at 14:19
  
  ‘traffic accidents, violence, or suicide’ are all part of wider public health. that’s why this is a valid comparison. Health systems play a part in preventing all these.
  
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  - by Theodore Whitfield on April 25th, 2012 at 16:15
    
    I think that you could maybe make an argument that suicide is covered by mental health treatment, although I’m not sure that there is much evidence of a strong treatment effect. But it is a very expansive notion of the healthcare system’s responsibilities to include traffic accidents and violence.
    
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    by Marc Brown on April 25th, 2012 at 16:43
    
    Accidents and injuries aren’t only the responsibility of healthcare systems of course – it’s a partnership with other agencies. But public health is intimately involved with say initiatives to cut childhood accidents and to stop people ending up in the ER, such as on late night alcohol consumption and domestic violence.
    
    Eg – see UK National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) guidance on road injuries:
    
    The key is the defintion of public health – most people thnk health = hospitals. It isn’t.
    
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- by charlie goldstein on April 25th, 2012 at 18:19
  
  Check out World Health Organization statistics. The USA is about 37th in the world in health care. You Republicans can’t hide from that fact and that someone is trying to do something about it.
  
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  - by Kenneth Thomas on April 26th, 2012 at 00:37
    
    To the best of my knowledge, the WHO study was conducted in 2000 and has never been updated. Not that I think the U.S. ranking is likely to have improved since then.
    
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- by Floccina on April 26th, 2012 at 10:25
  
  One should keep that in mind when one is using life expectancy to judge medical care by location. It an’t about medical care.
  
  See the rows for traffic accidents and violence. Healthcare hardly matters at all!
  
  Probably the best way to improve health in the USA to work to make cars safer!
  
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