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Japanese Have Longest Healthy Lives
The New York Times, June 4, 2000
GENEVA (AP) - The Japanese have the best prospects for
long and active lives, while Americans lag behind because of miserable
standards among the U.S. poor - who fare worse than many Africans, the
World Health Organization said Sunday.
Japanese can expect 74 years of healthy life, according to a WHO study
that measures ''disability-adjusted'' life expectancy, subtracting years
according to the prevalence and severity of ailments ranging from malaria
to lung disease.
Australia, at 73.2 years, came second, followed by France, Sweden, Spain
and Italy. The United States, which spends the most on health, rated only
24th, with an expectancy of 70 years.
Sierra Leone, whose people can expect less than 26 years of good health,
was at the bottom of the WHO list. The 23 lowest ranked countries among
the 191 WHO members were all in sub-Saharan Africa, hit by the AIDS
epidemic, malaria and other tropical diseases, poor nutrition and unsafe
water.
''Healthy life expectancy in some African countries is dropping back to
levels we haven't seen in advanced countries since medieval times,'' said
Chris Murray, director of the U.N. agency's global program on evidence for
health policy. AIDS has cut five years or more from African life
expectancy in the past decade, he said.
Overall, the WHO said global life expectancy averaged 64.5 years in 1999,
six years more than two decades ago. But its study focused on healthy life
expectancy rather than the number of years spent alive.
Murray said the U.N. agency decided to switch to the healthy life
assessment as a better indicator for the real state of health around the
world.
''There's been a real concern that (people) are spending those extra years
of life in bed disabled,'' Murray said. But ''the countries at the top of
the list are getting a double bonus - they're living longer and they're
spending more of their time in good health.''
The WHO said Japan's traditional low fat diet and low lung disease rates
have been key factors in its top position, but it appears to be losing
ground.
Second-placed Australia ''is on its way up,'' Murray said, having reduced
smoking, campaigned effectively against the spread of the AIDS virus and
cut road accidents.
''The United States, which spends the most on health, stands out as not
doing as well as they should be,'' although rich Americans class as the
world's healthiest people, Murray said.
The bottom 2% of Americans have health life expectancies characteristic of
sub-Saharan Africa in the 1950s, according to Murray. ''Native Americans,
poor rural black populations and some of the inner city populations have
terrible health status,'' he said.
Traditionally high rates of tobacco-related disease and high homicide and
injury rates also dragged down the U.S. score, said Alan Lopez,
coordinator of WHO's epidemiology team.
According to WHO figures, 56 million people died across the world last
year, 10.5 million of them children under 5. Developing countries
accounted for 98% of the child deaths.
While noncommunicable diseases resulted in 33.5 million deaths worldwide -
more than half the total - they were responsible for only one in five
deaths in Africa.
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