USA is, by far, the country of OECD that spends the most on health but with very mediocre results in the indicators on the health status of the population and a Life expectancy which, after being stagnant for a decade, suffered a serious downturn due to covid.
In its comparative report on health systems published this Tuesday, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) shows that the United States was one of the countries in which life expectancy declined the most during the 2019-2021 covid period (2.4 years, compared to 0.7 on average).
This drop occurred after between 2010 and 2019 their life expectancy had remained practically stagnant, since it improved by only 0.1 years, the least favorable evolution of the 38 members of the organization.
In fact, at 76.4 years, life expectancy in the United States in 2021 was clearly lower than the 80.3 average in the OECD and was only below Latvia (73.1 years), Hungary (74.3), Lithuania (74.2), Slovakia (74.6), Mexico (75.4) and Poland (75.5).
And that in the country that dedicates by far the most money to healthcare both in absolute terms (US$ 12.55 per inhabitant per year, compared to 4.98 on average), and in relative terms, with 16.6% of the gross domestic product (GDP). , compared to 9.2% in the OECD as a whole.
The mediocre results of life expectancy in the United States in the last decade can be related, among other things, to mortality from opioid consumption, which has doubled there since 2010 and is 7.5 times higher than the average in the United States. the OECD, with a rate of 223 deaths per million inhabitants among adults aged 15 to 60.
Source: Gestion
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