| Britons are healthier than Americans |
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Middle-aged Americans are considerably sicker than their British counterparts even though the United States spends more than twice as much per person on health care as Britain, researchers said Tuesday.
Supported by the two countries, the study which published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, concluded, “Americans are much sicker than the English.”
The data for the study came from government - funded health surveys that included 4,386 Americans aged 55 to 64 and 3,681 Britons in the same age range to compare the relative health of the participants and how their health varies as a result of social and economic status, in both the countries.
In their writing in The Journal, researchers from University College, London, also appeared to confirm stereotypes tossed across the Atlantic, concluding that Americans are prone to obesity while Britons drink too much.
Despite the fact that Americans pay more than twice as much for their medical care as the Britons, $ 5,274 a year per person in the United States vs. $ 2,164 in England but researchers wrote that "health insurance cannot be the central reason for the better health outcomes in England because the top socioeconomic-status tier of the U.S. population have close to universal access but their health outcomes are often worse than those of their English counterparts."
Take any impairment of health like diabetes, heart disease, stroke, cancer, lung disease and high blood pressure; Americans are much more likely to have it than their counterparts on the other much safer side. The diabetes rate was 6.1 percent in England vs. 12.5 percent in the United States. As per the data, the cancer rate was 5.5 percent in England, compared with 9.5 percent in the United States; the heart disease rate was 9.6 percent in England, compared with 15.1 percent in the United States.
The researchers disclosed that in Britain, many people depend on the widely available, state-run National Health Service, which is facing huge deficit that has eliminated thousands of hospital beds.
Dr. Michael Marmot, an author of the report, said the research exposed that neither differences in health could be attributed to the "usual suspects," like rates of smoking, obesity or alcohol abuse, nor could varying levels of health be imputed to differences between the health care systems of the United States and Britain.
In a telephonic interview, he said, “I’m arguing that it’s due to the differences in the circumstances in which people live.” He added, “Work, job insecurity, the nature of communities, residential communities, et cetera- I think that’s the place we should try to look.”
After examining the differences of the habits of the surveyed people, the researchers said that “smoking behavior was similar in both countries, with about one in five people between the ages of 55 and 64 years currently smoking,” rather, "Obesity rates were much higher in the U.S., and heavy drinking was more common in England."
The researchers also came to a conclusion that wealthier and better-educated people in both countries were much healthier than poorer and less-educated people.
On contrary, a press release said, the study found that "differences in socioeconomic groups between the two countries were so great that those in the top education and income level in the U.S. had similar rates of diabetes and heart disease as those in the bottom education and income level in England."
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