tagged w/ national health
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This new series advises visitors and residents in the UK on how to behave appropriately in Britain and covers a broad range of useful topics. This first episode tackles the issue of healthy eating, which is becoming increasingly vital for the ignorant mass of fat UK citizens who have no idea what is good for them. With increasing obesity and NHS costs, this government-backed report provides all the necessary information to inform you about how to be truly British and have a healthy life.This new series advises visitors and residents in the UK on how to behave... more
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U.S. Hispanics can expect to outlive whites by more than two years and blacks by more than seven, government researchers say in a startling report that is the first to calculate Hispanic life expectancy in this country.
The report released Wednesday is the strongest evidence yet of what some experts call the "Hispanic paradox" — longevity for a population with a large share of poor, undereducated members. A leading theory is that Hispanics who manage to immigrate to the U.S. are among the healthiest from their countries.
A Hispanic born in 2006 could expect to live about 80 years and seven months, the government estimates. Life expectancy for a white is about 78, and for a black, just shy of 73 years.
Researchers have seen signs of Hispanic longevity for years. But until recently, the government didn't calculate life expectancy for Hispanics as a separate group; they were included among the black and white populations. The new report projecting future life spans is based on death certificates from years earlier.
By breaking out the longer-living Hispanics, the life expectancies for non-Hispanic whites and blacks both declined slightly, said the report's author, Elizabeth Arias of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Hispanics are the largest, fastest growing minority in the United States, accounting for 15 percent of the population.
An estimated 40 percent of them are immigrants, who in some cases arrived after arduous journeys to do taxing manual labor. It takes a fit person to accomplish that, suggesting that the United States is gaining some of the healthiest people born in Mexico and other countries, said Dr. Peter Muennig of Columbia University's school of public health who has studied life expectancy in different countries.
Compared to the estimate for all U.S. Hispanics, life expectancy is nearly two years lower in Puerto Rico, more than two years lower in Cuba, and more than four years lower in Mexico, according to World Health Organization figures.
However, experts say that immigrant hardiness diminishes within a couple of generations of living here. Many believe it's because the children of immigrants take up smoking, fast-food diets and other habits blamed for wrecking the health of other ethnic populations.
"The American lifestyle is very sedentary. That's not a good thing," said Jane Delgado, president of the National Alliance for Hispanic Health, which focuses on improving health services for Hispanics.
Health researchers have seen a strong link between poverty, lack of education and life-shortening health problems. Hispanics are disadvantaged in those areas: About 19 percent of Hispanics live at or below the federal poverty level — three times more than whites. As for education, fewer than 13 percent of Hispanics have a college degree, compared to 17 percent of blacks and 30 percent of whites.
read more:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20101013/ap_on_he_me/us_med_hispanic_longevityU.S. Hispanics can expect to outlive whites by more than two years and blacks by more... more
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Opponents say that a national healthcare would be a disaster. Then they say that a national health care would run insurance companies out of business. Which is it, so bad-disaster or so good-bankrupt insurance companies?Opponents say that a national healthcare would be a disaster. Then they say that a... more
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VA the best run healthcare in the world. Critics of healthcare reform say that a healthcare program run by gov't would be a diaster. So what is it a diaster or a well run gov't program?VA the best run healthcare in the world. Critics of healthcare reform say that a... more
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In "The Cost Conundrum," his latest article for The New Yorker, staff writer Dr. Atul Gawande reports from McAllen, Texas, a border-town with the dubious distinction of spending more per person on health care than almost any other market in America.
But higher spending doesn't necessarily correlate with better care, as Gawande discovers when he compares health outcomes in McAllen with those of El Paso, Texas — a city with similar population demographics, but where Medicare spending per enrollee is half that of McAllen.
Gawande writes that his findings, based on Medicare's 25 metrics of care, indicate that: "On all but two of these [standards of care], McAllen's five largest hospitals performed worse, on average, than El Paso's. McAllen costs Medicare seven thousand dollars more per person each year than does the average city in America. But not, so far as one can tell, because it's delivering better health care."
As the national debate about health care heats up, Gawande's article has become a must-read for President Obama's staff.
Gawande is an associate professor of surgery at Harvard Medical School and at the Harvard School of Public Health. In 2006 he received the MacArthur Award for his research and writing.
Here's that article:
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/06/01/090601fa_fact_gawandeIn "The Cost Conundrum," his latest article for The New Yorker, staff writer... more
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There are two other version of this here, both of which have the ending missing!
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