[ExI] How to get a healthy country

[Alejandro Dubrovsky]

On Tue, 2007-10-16 at 12:38 -0700, J. Andrew Rogers wrote:
> If you remove things like accidents from the death statistics (which  
> are atypically high in the US), you find that Americans are about the  
> longest lived people in the industrialized world.  It is not because  
> Americans are particularly healthy, but that the survival rates for  
> many dangerous diseases (and particularly cancer) in the US often  
> dwarf that of the rest of the industrialized world.  As an extreme  
> example that was in the news recently, an average person with cancer  
> in the US has a 30-35% higher survival rate than the average person  
> with cancer in the UK.  As the population ages, factors like this  
> will matter greatly.
> 

Unless by 'thing like accidents' you mean heart disease, your statement
is at odds with the numbers I see.  

The US has a lifespan in the bottom half of the OECD countries.  It is
way below the top countries (77.8 @2004 vs 82.1 for Japan.  Japan hasn't
been below 77.8 since 1988) It goes to the top half at 65 years of age,
but it is still not in the top ten.  (see
http://www.oecd.org/document/16/0,3343,en_2825_495642_2085200_1_1_1_1,00.html , get the sample data).  Or go through their beta statistics page which should stay in beta. (http://stats.oecd.org/wbos/default.aspx)

The problem is not accident rate, but heart disease (see
http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/57/63/35625138.pdf). The differences there
dominate the  differences in cancer death rates (see top graphs of
<http://www.hc-sc.gc.ca/hcs-sss/pubs/system-regime/2002-fed-comp-indicat/2002-health-sante6_e.html> or page 27 of  <http://books.google.com/books?id=VwepWgIN_0YC&pg=PA26&lpg=PA26&dq=cancer+death+rate+oecd&source=web&ots=RIts_V6KbW&sig=aI18VIo8eVrupAkgwOwO_GO1xhI> )

Survival is high, but death rate is "standard" => high level of early
detection?