How U.S. Compares in Key Determinants of Health

How U.S. Compares in Key Determinants of Health

Order Instructions:

Exposing the Gaps—How Does the United States Compare in Key Determinants of Health?
When the health of a population is measured by various mortality indicators such as life expectancy, infant or child mortality, or the chances of surviving to retirement, surprising trends emerge. Health, as measured by longevity, appears to be declining in substantial segments of the U.S. population, especially for women (United Health Foundation, 2013). These findings receive little attention in most public health efforts or in the mainstream media, at least in the United States.
For this Assignment, you select health indicators used to measure the health of the U.S. population and contrast them to other countries around the world. You compare various determinants of health within different states in the United States as well as across continents.
To prepare for this Assignment, complete the readings and view the media in your Learning Resources. Install the free Gapminder Desktop tool and experiment plotting different health outcomes against various determinants already loaded along the two axes. Using the various health ranking resources provided, select two key health indicators for which the United States ranks lower than other nations.
Note: In grading every required Application Assignment, your Instructor uses an Application Assignment Rubric, located in the Course Information area. Review this rubric prior to completing your assignment.

The Assignment (3–4 pages):

• Provide a brief description of the two health indicators you selected, citing specific sources.
• Explain how the U.S. ranks on these indicators compared to other nations.
• Explain two factors that might influence those rankings and the relative standing of the U.S. compared to the other nations.
• Determine which two states rank the best and which two states rank the worst for those indicators.
• Describe factors you believe might contribute to those relative rankings among the states.
• Share any insights you gained or conclusions you drew as a result of making these comparisons.
• Expand on your insights utilizing the Learning Resource

SAMPLE ANSWER

How U.S. Compares in Key Determinants of Health

The two health indicators selected are life expectancy and infant mortality rates. Life expectancy is understood as the expected number of years of life that is remaining at a particular age. Life expectancy is extensively utilized in measuring health even though it only takes into consideration the length of life of people in the country and not their quality of life (Kliff, 2013). Infant mortality rate (IMR) is basically the rate of deaths amongst children who are below the age of 1 year, for each 1,000 live births averaged over 3 years (Castillo, 2013).

IMR = (Number of child deaths in a year / No. of live births in the same year) x 1000.

Relative to other nations, America is ranked 26^th in life expectancy. This is illustrated in the table below:

Table 1: Life expectancy in the U.S. compared to other countries (Kliff, 2013)

The life expectancy for women in America is 80.7 and 75.6 for men (Castillo, 2013). Although the life expectancy in the United States is increasing, it is doing so a lot more slowly compared to other developed countries. Two factors that may influence the life expectancy rankings are violence and disease. In essence, life expectancy in the U.S is lowest amongst industrialized countries because of violence and disease. The violence is partly because of the widespread possession of guns as well as the practice of storing firearms in unlocked places at home (Castillo, 2013). Besides the impact of gun violence, people in the United States get involved in more accidents involving alcohol and consume the most calories among high-income nations. Moreover, heart disease, diabetes in addition to lung disease are more prevalent in the U.S. than in other developed countries (Castillo, 2013).

 Figure 1: Infant Mortality Rates of U.S. compared to other high-income nations (Kliff, 2013)

In America, the infant mortality rate is more than 2 times that of peer nations such as Sweden and Japan (Kliff, 2013). Two factors that may influence those infant mortality rate rankings include poor nutrition of American babies compared to babies from other high-income countries, and inadequate nutrition/under nutrition of American babies compared to babies in other developed nations (Castillo, 2013).

Table 2: the two best and two worst states in the U.S. by infant mortality rates (Statistica, 2013)

The above statistic indicates the infant mortality rates of the 2 best and 2 worst states in the United States as of the year 2012. The State of New Hampshire had the best rate which was 4.42 for every 1,000 live births prior to the age of 1 year, followed by Minnesota with 4.55. Alabama and Mississippi had the worst with 8.49 and 9.86 respectively (Statistica, 2013). Factors that may contribute to those relative rankings among the states include poor nutrition as well as under nutrition considering that in terms of child food insecurity rates, the state of Mississippi ranks at the bottom and neighboring Alabama is ranked 44^th out of 50 states. Conversely, the top 2 states in terms of child food insecurity rates are New Hampshire and Minnesota (Ochs, 2014).

Table 3: U.S. states by life expectancy (Greenwood, 2014)

At 81.3 years, the state of Hawaii has the longest life expectancy exceeding the national average by more than 2 years. It is followed by Minnesota with a life expectancy at birth of 81.1. Out of all the U.S. territories, Mississippi ranks with the shortest life expectancy having 75.0 (Greenwood, 2014). The two main factors which essentially contribute to those ranking include diseases such as diabetes, as well as the quality of health care in the state, bearing that the state of Minnesota has more doctors per capita compared to West Virginia or Mississippi. Having more doctors per capita ensures the provision of adequate, and better quality health care for citizens of that state (Ochs, 2014).

In sum, America ranks poorly in terms of infant mortality rates as well as life expectancy compared to other developed countries. Two factors that may influence those infant mortality rate rankings include poor nutrition and inadequate nutrition. The factors that contribute to the life expectancy rankings are violence – gun violence in particular –, and disease particularly heart disease and lung disease. The southern states of West Virginia, Mississippi, and Alabama rank at the bottom in terms of life expectancy while Minnesota and Hawaii are at the top. In infant mortality, New Hampshire and Minnesota are at the top while Alabama and Mississippi are at the bottom.

References

Castillo, M. (2013). Report: U.S. Life Expectancy Lowest among Wealthy Nations due to Disease, Violence. CBSNews.

Greenwood, K. (2014). The 15 U.S. States with the Longest Life Expectancies. Boston, MA: CRC Press.

Kliff, S. (2013). The U.S. Ranks 26^th for Life Expectancy, Right Behind Slovenia. The Washington Post. Available at http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/11/21/the-u-s-ranks-26th-for-life-expectancy-right-behind-slovenia/ (Accessed September 9, 2014).

Ochs, P. (2014). Mississippi Ranks Last in Underprivileged Children. Sun Herald.

Statistica. (2013). Infant Mortality Rate in the United States as of 2012, by State (Deaths per 1,000 Live Births). Available at http://www.statista.com/statistics/252064/us-infant-mortality-rate-by-ethnicity-2011/ (Accessed September 9, 2014).

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