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American In Poorer Health Than Canadians; Any relationship to "Universal care?"
Topic Started: May 31 2006, 07:59 AM (440 Views)
Colo_Crawdad
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Lowell
Study: U.S. not as healthy as Canada (Emphasis added)

Quote:
 
The Associated Press
May 31. 2006 6:01AM

ATLANTA - You can add Canadians to the list of foreigners who are healthier than Americans.

Americans are 42 percent more likely than Canadians to have diabetes, 32 percent more likely to have high blood pressure, and 12 percent 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, 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.

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 percent of Americans and 4.7 percent of Canadians reported having diabetes; 18.3 percent and 13.9 percent, respectively, reported having high blood pressure; and 17.9 percent and 16.0 percent 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 percent of Americans said they were obese, compared with 15 percent of Canadians. And about 13.5 percent of the Americans admitted to a sedentary lifestyle, versus 6.5 percent of Canadians. However, more Canadians were smokers - 19 percent, compared with about 17 percent of Americans.

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

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

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

However, about 80 percent of Americans had a regular doctor, while 85 percent of Canadians did. And nearly twice as many Americans said there were medicines they needed but couldn't afford (9.9 percent versus 5.1 percent).
"WE HAVE MET THE ENEMY AND HE IS US." --- Pogo
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abradf2519
Member
Diabetes? High blood pressure? Arthritis? Are these preventable by health care? Seems to me if you are going to have one of these problems, it doesn't matter how often you've been to the doctor. The only advantage a Canadian would have is that he/she may be dealing with these problems earlier, and it costs less.

Seems like there is a major problem with the study.
Alan
Milan, New York, USA
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cmoehle
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Chris - San Antonio TX
Quote:
 
...Perhaps the problem with the U.S. health care system is with the way that medicine is practiced. We favor expensive diagnostic procedures, specialist care, and surgeries, where costs are high and benefits tend to be low....

[Nortin Hadler, an MD who...published The Last Well Person: How to Stay Well Despite the Health-care System] r takes on many popular forms of health care in America, from alternative medicine to colonoscopy screening to anti-cholesterol drugs to heart bypass surgery. In his iconoclastic view, all of these therapies have benefits that are too small in terms of either statistical significance or common sense to warrant widespread use....


From Minding the Health Gap.


Universal health care and single payer insurance are not solutions, just band-aides.
Politics is the art of achieving the maximum amount of freedom for individuals that is consistent with the maintenance of social order.
--Barry Goldwater
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cruiser
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We have a much larger population of african Americans then Canada. It is a well known fact that they have a much larger incidence of heart disease, diabetes, and hypertension. This fact will skew any random poll taken.
Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from a religious conviction.

Blaise Pascal (1623 - 1662)
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Colo_Crawdad
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Lowell
cruiser
Jun 1 2006, 08:07 AM
We have a much larger population of african Americans then Canada. It is a well known fact that they have a much larger incidence of heart disease, diabetes, and hypertension. This fact will skew any random poll taken.

Do they also have a lower percentage of health coverage? That might skew the results too. Oh, that's what the article indicated, isn't it?
"WE HAVE MET THE ENEMY AND HE IS US." --- Pogo
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cruiser
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Member
What does diabetes, hypertension, and heart disease have to do with this. All the health care in the world cannot change this FACT,
Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from a religious conviction.

Blaise Pascal (1623 - 1662)
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tomdrobin
Member
cruiser
Jun 1 2006, 02:07 PM
We have a much larger population of african Americans then Canada. It is a well known fact that they have a much larger incidence of heart disease, diabetes, and hypertension. This fact will skew any random poll taken.

This is also true of the Mexican American population. High rates of diabetes and hypertension. Both are diseases caused primarily by obesity and diets high in salt and fat. I've read research suggesting the reason is their not to distant ancestors lived on a very simple low sodium, low fat diet out of necessity (to keep from starving). So these diseases are really the result of prosperity, by those who are not gentically adapted to it yet.
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campingken
Member
Perhaps we are just fatter than Canadians and don't excerise enough.....


Ken
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tomdrobin
Member
campingken
Jun 2 2006, 06:37 PM
Perhaps we are just fatter than Canadians and don't excerise enough.....


Ken

Or perhaps the Canadians have better "health" genes than we. Aren't the majority of European decent? Less prone to the high BP, and BS that many in our population are.
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Justine
Member
I don't think there is one reason, I think there are serveral, and I think some of the previous posts had excellant points.

African Americans do have a higher incident of heart disease, diabetes and high blood pressure. America has way more African Americans then Canada.
Obesity is a contributing factor in manyof these health problems, and , unfortunately America has a high rate of obesity.

Universal health care has many faults( waits being only one of many) , but, it does mean that most Canadians are able to see a doctor sooner and get preventative care easier, regardless of income.

I do think that one study is not to be taken as gospel, and studies can be non conclusive, with the researchers sometimes really stretching a point to come to a conclusion.

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tomdrobin
Member
Justine
Jun 3 2006, 04:01 AM
I do think that one study is not to be taken as gospel, and studies can be non conclusive, with the researchers sometimes really stretching a point to come to a conclusion.

:clap: :clap: :clap:
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Banandangees
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Stress! It's stress. What's Canadians have to be stressed about? :)
Banan
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cmoehle
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Chris - San Antonio TX
Stress is an important factor. Whether you think we're deeply or closely divided, there is a lot of heated debate on issues and values.


If you read the initial article you will see the findings are based on surveys of how people perceive their health, not actual health as determined by a physician.
Politics is the art of achieving the maximum amount of freedom for individuals that is consistent with the maintenance of social order.
--Barry Goldwater
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Justine
Member
" how people perceive their health"

So maybe there are more American hyperchondriacs. ?? :floorrollin:
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pentax
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Kamloops - BC Interior
campingken
Jun 2 2006, 11:37 AM
Perhaps we are just fatter than Canadians and don't excerise enough.....


Ken

I hope I don't offend anyone here, but my 40-something nephew just got back from a family trip to Disneyland and the Anaheim area. One of the first observations he told me was (no offence) "Mur, you wouldn't believe how many really obese people there are down there.... 250, 300 pounds is NOTHING!"
He was genuinely amazed..... :faint:

I have a 40-inch waist since I was lying around ill most of the winter, and it really embarrasses me, but I'm also 6'1". (240 lbs)
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"Kirk to Enterprise - Very funny, Scotty.... now beam down my clothes!"
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