Life Expectancy Data Ignores Int'l Comparison

Life expectancy in the U.S. continued its slow but steady upward crawl, reaching an average of 78.1 years in 2006, according to this morning's Washington Post report on the latest data from the Census Bureau. The average woman in 2006 could expect to live to 80.7, the average men to 75.4. Infant mortality was down, the gap between men and women was down, and the gap between racial groups was down, suggesting the recently reported pockets of declining longevity in Appalachia due to rising obesity rates are precisely that, pockets. All good news.

Unfortunately, neither the government press release nor the mainstream reporter put this latest data in an international comparative context. How do we rank compared to other nations?

Not hard to find out, thanks to the Internet. According to the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development, the U.S. ranked 24th out of 33 nations ranked by that organization. U.S. life expectancy of 77.8 in 2005 (it rose 0.3 years in 2006) trailed the OECD average by a full year and global leader Japan by a half decade.

At least we're not Russia, where life expectancy remains mired at about 65 years, trailing every other nation in the global survey. Others behind the U.S.? Turkey, Brazil, Hungary, China, Poland, the Slovak and Czech Republics, and Mexico. When it comes to the average person's health in the U.S., our descent into second world status is complete.

It would be nice if reporters pointed that out whenever the government offers rosy statistics on how well we're doing.