Madison T.
April 11, 2018 The article I read was from Los Angeles Times. The date of publication is April 10, 2018. The name of the article is "What ails America? The answer varies from state to state" The author of the article is Melissa Healy The article is about health of Americans now compared to the past. The article also compares the most common causes of death between different states. Overall Americans are have better health then they did in the past. American's health overall are improving but that progress is in danger because of obesity, depression, suicide and substance abuse. The morality rates have nearly declined almost 22% over 26 years which is from 745 deaths per 100,000 people in 1990 to 578 per 100,000 people per year in 2016. In 2016, the state with the highest average life expectancy was Hawaii with 81.3 years. The state with the lowest average was Mississippi with 74.7 years. Heart disease and lung cancer were the top two causes of death of Americans in the 2016, the same as 1990. Self harm, opioid use disorders, and alcohol related liver diseases became a more common cause of death. 10 million Americans live with a serious mental condition and more than seven million people younger than 18 experience extreme emotional disturbance. In 2014, an American's life expectancy was ranked 43rd in the world even though the US spends more per person on health care than any other country. There is a disconnect between the large sums of money being spend on healthcare and its slight improvements in health. Public health programs only receive an estimated 2.5% of US healthcare dollars and the budget of The Prevention and Public Health Fund had been cut again in the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2018. These events happened in the US. This article contains information from 1990s to 2018. This event happened because of the reports US public health scholars wrote down. They were also a part of the Global Burden of Disease group. They kept track of the average life expectancies for people in different states in different times. They also kept track of the most common causes of death between 1990s to 2016. I think that more work should not only go into research of life expectancies and causes of death but also organizations that help prolong the lives of people and educate them on ways to take care of their health. I was surprised to learn how underinvested these organizations are. I also think there should be more focus on mental health and substance abuse because it is affecting the quality of life of people in America and deaths relating to it are becoming more common. Link to Article I will comment on Matthew, Rachna and Michael´s blog posts.
2 Comments
Matthew Evans
4/13/2018 09:16:01 am
First of all, I think this post is very good! I also think it's horrible that even though we spend the most on healthcare, the health of Americans is worsening in some areas. How do you propose we fix this system?
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Michael Q
4/15/2018 11:56:13 pm
You described the situation of the Medical system and this article really well. I think it is really strange that they spend so much money into health care systems but there is little actual improvements. I wonder, what is the money being used for and why is there only a slight increase of improvement when it's being highly funded?
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