America: “Shorter Lives, Poorer Health”

The video’s pretty dry, but it seems to be a good summary of this cheery study comparing America to other countries, which is available in full as a free PDF, here or via the widget below. The Atlantic also has a useful summary, in case you missed it, and then here’s a summary of that summary:

Among the most striking of the report’s findings are that, among the countries studied, the U.S. has:

• The highest rate of death by violence, by a stunning margin
• The highest rate of death by car accident, also dramatically so
• The highest chance that a child will die before age 5
• The second-highest rate of death by coronary heart disease
• The second-highest rate of death by lung disease
• The highest teen pregnancy rate
• The highest rate of women dying due to complications of pregnancy and childbirth

The report does reveal bright spots: Americans are more likely to survive cancer or stroke, and if we live to age 75 we’re likely to keep on living longer than others. But these advances are dwarfed by the grave shortcomings.

One takeaway from all this is that there could maybe be a new super-rager tradition for 75th birthday parties — a sort of mirror quinceañera/bat mitzvah.