Causes of Lagging Life Expectancy at Older Ages in the United States

摘要: Life expectancy in the United States fares poorly international comparisons, primarily because of high mortality rates above age 50. This paper evaluates two prominent explanations its poor performance. One explanation is a performance by health care system. We find that, standards OECD countries, US does well terms screening for cancer, survival from after heart attacks and strokes, medication individuals with levels blood pressure or cholesterol. consider greater depth prostate cancer breast diseases which effective methods identification treatment have been developed where behavioral factors do not play dominant role. conclude that low longevity ranking likely to be result functioning In second part paper, we argue history heavy cigarette smoking major factor ranking. estimate male e50 2003 would 2.8 years higher if smoking-attributable deaths were eliminated, while female grow 2.6 years. Removing smokingattributable all countries improve women 17 (out 20) 7; men’s 14 9.