By IANS
London : The United States has the worst record among industrialised nations when it comes to the preventable deaths of its citizens, according to new research.
The country has been placed last among 19 countries in terms of deaths that could have been prevented by access to timely and effective health care, says research supported by The Commonwealth Fund and published in the latest issue of Health Affairs.
While other nations dramatically improved these rates between 1997-98 and 2002-03, the US improved only slightly.
Had the US performed as well as the top three countries of the 19 industrialised countries in the study, there would have been 101,000 fewer deaths in the country 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 found that while other countries made strides and saw preventable deaths decline by an average of 16 percent, the US experienced only a four percent decline.
“It is notable that all countries have improved substantially except the US,” said Nolte, lead author of the study.
The authors also note that “it is difficult to disregard the observation that the slow decline in US 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 US falling even farther behind on this crucial indicator of health system performance,” said Commonwealth Fund Senior Vice President Cathy Schoen.
In 1997-98, the US ranked 15th out of 19 countries on the “mortality amenable to health care” measure. However, by 2002-03 it 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.