Thursday, April 20, 2006

World's Best Health Care?

I learned an interesting tidbit today. There are 27 countries that have a higher life expectancy than the US: Andorra, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Cyprus, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Iceland, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Luxembourg, Malta, Monaco, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, San Marino, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom. The US is tied for 27th place with Brunei, Chile, Costa Rica, Cuba (!), Denmark, Kuwait, Portugal, and Slovenia.

Source: The World Health Report 2005, World Health Organization (WHO)

2 comments:

Hjalti said...

Is this the only indicator? What others would be valid?

Todd Kuzma said...

Oh, no. I'm sure that there are many factors affecting life expectancy including environment and lifestyle. However, I do find it odd that the US ranks only 27th. I would expect that our health care system plays some role in this. I'm going to keep looking and see what else I can learn.