Information is not necessarily a surprise. Several studies have already shown that Americans died younger than most people living in other rich countries. In 2019, the average life expectancy in Switzerland or Spain was 84 years against 78.8 years in the United States. An age also lower than in Canada (82.3 years), and calculated before the Pandemic of Covid-19 passes by there to worsen the situation.
In a country where inequalities of wealth are increasing and where access to care is reserved for the wealthiest, one might think that the middle and upper classes would not be affected by this reduced life expectancy. We would be wrong. Admittedly, the richest Americans live longer than their less fortunate fellow citizens, but that does not mean that their life expectancy is similar to that, for example, of Europeans.
A study by researchers at Brown University in Providence, in the state of Rhode Island, made it possible to highlight these disparities: the richest Americans live less than the richest Europeans, but that’s not all. “”Washand Europeans in northern and western Europe had mortality rates 35% lower than those of the richest Americans, whose life expectancy resembled that of the poorest in northern and western Europe-which includes countries like France, the Netherlands and Switzerland“Explains an article in Ars Technica magazine.
Long Live Europe
“”The results are a brutal reminder that even the richest Americans are not immune to systemic problems in the United States contributing to lower life expectancy, such as economic inequalities or risk factors such as stress, food or environmental dangers», Analysis the main author of the study, Irene Papanicolas, professor of health economics in Brown, in a press release.
To draw up this observation, the researcher looked at health and wealth data of more than 73,000 adults in the United States and Europe dating from 2010. All were aged 50 to 85 and divided into categories according to their purchasing power. These participants were followed until 2022. First observation, the difference in life expectancy between the poorest quartile and the richest quartile is the most marked in the United States. Another teaching, the poorest quartile of the United States was the group where the youngest would die.
How to justify such a difference? If access more limited to care and the exorbitant cost of hospitalization can explain internal differences in the United States, they do not justify those divided the richest Americans from the richest Europeans. For researchers, the differences in lifestyle on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean are undoubtedly the reason. Food, environment, social behavior, cultural differences, are all factors that must be taken into account.
“”If we want to improve health in the United States, we must better understand the underlying factors that contribute to these differences-in particular between similar socio-economic groups-and why they result in different health results from one country to the other», Concludes Irene Papanicolas.
