Study shows Canadians healthier then Americans - Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community

leftwingx · 05-30-2006, 02:29 PM

Quote:

Study says Canadians healthier than Americans

Associated Press

ATLANTA — You can add Canada to the list of nations that are healthier than the United States of America.

Americans are 42 per cent more likely than Canadians to have diabetes, 32 per cent more likely to have high blood pressure, and 12 per cent more likely to have arthritis, Harvard Medical School researchers found. That is according to a survey in which American and Canadian adults were asked over the telephone about their health.

The study comes less than a month after other researchers reported that middle-aged, white Americans are much sicker than their counterparts in England.

“We're really falling behind other nations,” said Dr. Steffie Woolhandler, a co-author of the Canadian study.

Canada's national health insurance program is at least part of the reason for the differences found in the study, Dr. Woolhandler said. Universal coverage makes it easier for more Canadians to get disease-preventing health services, she said.

James Smith, a RAND Corp. researcher who co-authored the American-English study, disagreed. His research found that England's national health insurance program did not explain the difference in disease rates, because even Americans with insurance were in worse health.

“To me, that's unlikely,” he said of the idea that universal coverage explains international differences.

Dr. Woolhandler said her findings were different in at least one important respect: In the Canadian study, insured Americans and Canadians had about the same rates of disease. It was the uninsured Americans who made the overall U.S. figures worse, she said.

The study, released Tuesday, is being published in the American Journal of Public Health. It is based on a telephone survey of about 3,500 Canadians and 5,200 U.S. residents in 2002-03. Those surveyed were 18 or older.

The results are based on what those surveyed said about their health. In contrast, the researchers in the American-English study surveyed participants and also examined people and conducted laboratory tests on them.

The new study found that 6.7 per cent of Americans and 4.7 per cent of Canadians reported having diabetes; 18.3 per cent and 13.9 per cent, respectively, reported having high blood pressure; and 17.9 per cent and 16.0 per cent said they had arthritis. The Americans also reported more heart disease and major depression, but those difference were too small to be statistically significant.

About 21 per cent of Americans said they were obese, compared with 15 per cent of Canadians. And about 13.5 per cent of the Americans admitted to a sedentary lifestyle, versus 6.5 per cent of Canadians. However, more Canadians were smokers — 19 per cent, compared with about 17 per cent of Americans.

About 42 per cent of the Americans rated their quality of health care as excellent, while 39 per cent of Canadians did.

Also, 92 per cent of American women said they had a Pap test within the last five years, while 83 per cent of Canadian women had. But Canadians have lower death rates from cervical cancer. “It's a little hard to interpret,” Dr. Woolhandler said.

One more plus for the Americans: Fewer than 1 per cent said they were unable to get needed care because of long waits, compared with 3.5 per cent of Canadians.

However, about 80 per cent of Americans had a regular doctor, while 85 per cent of Canadians did. And nearly twice as many Americans said there were medicines they needed but couldn't afford (9.9 per cent versus 5.1 per cent).

With the vast number of Candians complaining about health care in Canada I was a bit surprised by the numbers. Considering the fact that there is a large push for private health care now, do you think that these numbers will move further in Canada's favor?

maleficent · 05-31-2006, 04:46 AM

I'm not sure that it's a big surprise that American's are unhealthy...

I think the state of healthcare in the US is abysmal... and if my experiences at the doctor recently are any indication of what healthcare is becoming, I really need to move...

I honestly think that the US has some of the best doctors and the best healthcare facilities in the world... we may suck at other things, like cars and electronics, but I think we're pretty good at medicine.. However, it's access to that medicine, that's the problem.

I remember a simpler time, where Marcus Welby style doctors were the norm, it was a doctor in a sole practice, with the good hearted nurse handing out lollipops. you could get an appointment day or night and he did make housecalls. Where I moved from, in a much larger city than i am currently living in, I still could get to a doctor in a small practice and get an appointment when I needed to see him... Now, all I can do is make an appointment, two weeks out, at a large healthcare facility (at their convenience)- and that was all the choice i had.. and never got to see a doctor... I saw an assistant who was following a checklist of what she was supposed to do... not using any practical knowledge...

Doctors in the US are stuck with exhorbitant malpractice insurance costs, which has kind of forced them into these big practices, so I can understand that to some degree, and they overschedule patients to maximize profits, I can also understand that, but medicine becoming a business is really only hurting the patient...

05-31-2006, 04:46 AM	#2 (permalink)
maleficent Junkie Moderator Emeritus Location: Chicago	I'm not sure that it's a big surprise that American's are unhealthy... I think the state of healthcare in the US is abysmal... and if my experiences at the doctor recently are any indication of what healthcare is becoming, I really need to move... I honestly think that the US has some of the best doctors and the best healthcare facilities in the world... we may suck at other things, like cars and electronics, but I think we're pretty good at medicine.. However, it's access to that medicine, that's the problem. I remember a simpler time, where Marcus Welby style doctors were the norm, it was a doctor in a sole practice, with the good hearted nurse handing out lollipops. you could get an appointment day or night and he did make housecalls. Where I moved from, in a much larger city than i am currently living in, I still could get to a doctor in a small practice and get an appointment when I needed to see him... Now, all I can do is make an appointment, two weeks out, at a large healthcare facility (at their convenience)- and that was all the choice i had.. and never got to see a doctor... I saw an assistant who was following a checklist of what she was supposed to do... not using any practical knowledge... Doctors in the US are stuck with exhorbitant malpractice insurance costs, which has kind of forced them into these big practices, so I can understand that to some degree, and they overschedule patients to maximize profits, I can also understand that, but medicine becoming a business is really only hurting the patient... __________________ Free your heart from hatred. Free your mind from worries. Live simply. Give more. Expect less.