JUANA SUMMERS, HOST:
There's more evidence today that the United States lags behind affluent European countries in enabling people to live long, healthy lives. A big new study out today reveals a surprising new twist on this problem. NPR health correspondent Rob Stein has the story.
ROB STEIN: Even though the U.S. spends way more on medical care than other affluent countries, the life expectancies of Americans have long lagged behind people in other wealthy nations. So Irene Papanicolas of the Brown University School of Public Health and her colleagues decided to take a closer look at the relationship between wealth and health in the U.S. compared to Europe. They followed more than 73,000 adults in the U.S. and Europe between 2010 and 2022, and they were surprised by what they discovered. Sure, the richest Americans tend to live longer than the poorest Americans and Europeans. But even the richest Americans don't live as long as the richest Europeans.
IRENE PAPANICOLAS: The survival of the wealthiest in the United States was better than the poorest in the United States, but comparable to the poorest in northern and western Europe. We were surprised by that result.
STEIN: About 80% of the wealthiest Americans were still alive by the end of the study. That's only about as good as the poorest northern and western Europeans, and not nearly as good as the richest northern and western Europeans. About 90% of them survived.
PAPANICOLAS: You would think in this grouping that the wealthiest Americans can afford, you know, some of the best health care that the world has to offer and the ability to access many other factors that are important for your health, such as good food, live in a relatively safe neighborhood. And so you would expect that the wealthiest in the United States have better, if not equal, mortality to the wealthiest in northern and western Europe.
STEIN: But that's not what the data show. Now, the study didn't explain why this is the case. But Papanicolas and others say the U.S. probably lags because of a variety of factors, like how badly many Americans eat, how little exercise they get, not to mention gun violence and stress and how hard it can be to get health care, even for many affluent people. The new study published in the New England Journal of Medicine comes as President Trump and his new health secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., are promising to make Americans healthier by focusing on fighting chronic diseases. Other experts say that could help, but some steps the administration is taking may just make things worse. Ellen Meara is a professor of health economics and policy at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.
ELLEN MEARA: Anything that's trying to lower chronic illness feels like a good thing. But to do that by dismantling the institutions that research these things seems like a strange way to go about it.
STEIN: Secretary Kennedy posted on social media that the U.S. health care system needs an overhaul because, quote, "what we've been doing isn't working."
Rob Stein, NPR 瓜神app.
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