life expectancy

Wealthy Americans have death rates on par with poor Europeans

America, Europe, health, health disparity, life expectancy, lifespan, New England Journal of Medicine, wealth, wealth inequality / Kelly Newman / April 4, 2025

“The findings are a stark reminder that even the wealthiest Americans are not shielded from the systemic issues in the US contributing to lower life expectancy, such as economic inequality or risk factors like stress, diet or environmental hazards,” lead study author Irene Papanicolas, a professor of health services, policy and practice at Brown, said in a news release.

The study looked at health and wealth data of more than 73,000 adults across the US and Europe who were 50 to 85 years old in 2010. There were more than 19,000 from the US, nearly 27,000 from Northern and Western Europe, nearly 19,000 from Eastern Europe, and nearly 9,000 from Southern Europe. For each region, participants were divided into wealth quartiles, with the first being the poorest and the fourth being the richest. The researchers then followed participants until 2022, tracking deaths.

The US had the largest gap in survival between the poorest and wealthiest quartiles compared to European countries. America’s poorest quartile also had the lowest survival rate of all groups, including the poorest quartiles in all three European regions.

While less access to health care and weaker social structures can explain the gap between the wealthy and poor in the US, it doesn’t explain the differences between the wealthy in the US and the wealthy in Europe, the researchers note. There may be other systemic factors at play that make Americans uniquely short-lived, such as diet, environment, behaviors, and cultural and social differences.

“If we want to improve health in the US, we need to better understand the underlying factors that contribute to these differences—particularly amongst similar socioeconomic groups—and why they translate to different health outcomes across nations,” Papanicolas said.

Wealthy Americans have death rates on par with poor Europeans Read More »

Americans spend more years being unhealthy than people in any other country

For the new study, researchers at the Mayo Clinic analyzed health statistics collected by the World Health Organization. The resource included data from 183 countries, allowing the researchers to compare countries’ life expectancy and healthspans, which are calculated by years of life weighted by health status.

Longer, but not better

Overall, the researchers saw lifespan-healthspan gaps grow around the world, with the average gap rising from 8.5 years in 2000 to 9.6 years in 2019. Global life expectancy rose 6.5 years, to about 73 years, while healthspans only rose 5.4 years in that time, to around 63 years.

But the US was a notable outlier, with its gap growing from 10.9 years to 12.4 years, a 29 percent higher gap than the global mean.

The gap was most notable for women—a trend seen around the world. Between 2000 and 2019, US women saw their life expectancy rise 1.5 years, from 79.2 to 80.7 years, but they saw no change in their healthspans. Women’s lifespan-healthspan gap rose from 12.2 years to 13.7 years. For US men, life expectancy rose 2.2 years, from 74.1 to 76.3 years, and their healthspans also increased 0.6 years. Their lifespan-healthspan gap in 2019 was 11.1 years, 2.6 years shorter than women’s.

The conditions most responsible for US disease burden included mental and substance use disorders, plus musculoskeletal diseases. For women, the biggest contributors were musculoskeletal, genitourinary, and neurological diseases.

While the US presented the most extreme example, the researchers note that the global trends seem to present a “disease paradox whereby reduced acute mortality exposes survivors to an increased burden of chronic disease.”