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Poor Britons healthier than rich Americans | 61 comments (61 topical, editorial, 0 hidden)
Re: Poor Britons healthier than rich Americans (4.00 / 3)
I wonder how much of that is down to different cultural attitudes to health?

Incidentially:

Robert Blendon, a professor of health policy at the Harvard School of Public Health who was not involved in the study, said the stress of striving for the American dream may account for Americans' lousy health.

"The opportunity to go both up and down the socioeconomic scale in America may create stress," Blendon said. Americans don't have a reliable government safety net like the English enjoy, Blendon said.

I guess he doesn't read Eurotrib.

by Colman (colman at eurotrib.com) on Thu May 4th, 2006 at 07:33:41 AM EST
Re: Poor Britons healthier than rich Americans (none / 0)
They feel they've corrected for culture:
These surveys contain extensive and comparable biological disease markers on respondents, which are used to determine whether differential propensities to report illness can explain these health differences.

Conclusion  Based on self-reported illnesses and biological markers of disease, US residents are much less healthy than their English counterparts and these differences exist at all points of the SES distribution.
by Colman (colman at eurotrib.com) on Thu May 4th, 2006 at 07:36:43 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Doubt it (none / 1)
Their methodology is highly dubious.

Most of the differences are probably related with cultural differences. Mostly what they eat how you eat, work, sleep, stress, little walks, constant laughs, sex...well all those stuff that the scientific community knows so well but somehow nobody cares about...

These are really dificult to pinpoint to markers and are only uncovered doing high number of statistics and tracking the biochemistry...

In any case..only a fool will pick up the american system.

A pleasure

I therefore claim to show, not how men think in myths, but how myths operate in men's minds without their being aware of the fact. Levi-Strauss, Claude

by kcurie on Thu May 4th, 2006 at 09:57:41 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Re: Doubt it (none / 0)
I meant the cultural attitude to reporting and investigating illness: I'd expect Brits to be more likely not to self-report as having illnesses than USians.
by Colman (colman at eurotrib.com) on Thu May 4th, 2006 at 10:01:06 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Re: Doubt it (none / 1)
I should have included this in my list, for sure...

But do not forget the rest....I know my view of health and medicine is not very standard (I think science fails miserably on it) but I would say that the above list and hygiene are considered the perfect indicators of the average health of a society...

Other than that particualr food or customs can make some illness disappear completely...and I think it is very difficult to account for it.

But NHS in fornt of US always.

A pleasure

I therefore claim to show, not how men think in myths, but how myths operate in men's minds without their being aware of the fact. Levi-Strauss, Claude

by kcurie on Thu May 4th, 2006 at 10:08:32 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Poor Britons healthier than rich Americans | 61 comments (61 topical, 0 editorial, 0 hidden)
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