Americans' life expectancy continues to fall behind other countries'

http://www.biologynews.net/archives/2010/10/07/americans_life_expectancy_continues_to_fall_behind_other_countries.html

As the US continues to lag behind other nations in gains of life expectancy, researchers Peter Muennig and Sherry Glied are trying to find out why this is happening. This is not happening due to the common causes such as, smoking, obesity, traffic fatalities, and homocides. Even though the US achieved gains in 15-year survival rates over the last few decades, other countries have achieved even greater gains. The researchers say the failure for the US to make greater gains in survival rates may be due to the flaws in the overall health system. They discovered that the US health care system has been failing Americans for years.

This research fasinates me. It is interesting to learn that the US is behind all the other nations in the gains of life expectancy and it is not due to things like obesity, smoking or traffic accidents. I would have expected the decrease of life expectancy to have something to do with obesity since about half the US citizens are obese. I also would have contributed shorter life expectancies to traffic accidents since texting has become such a huge thing for our teens and young adults in the US. I find it difficult to accept that our health care systems have been failing us for years, which is in turn leading to shorter life spans. Hopefully this new information will lead to better health care for the US. In my opinion, this research is very important and hopefully will lead to longer life spans for US citizens.