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shallowdeep -> RE: Canadians Live Longer In Better Health Than Americans (4/30/2010 12:43:40 AM)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: DarkSteven
There are still a lot of other cultural differences, and I suspect that the ethnicity of the Canadians (and thus their genetic makeup) is more homogeneous than that of the USA citizens. I wouldn't be surprised if risk factors such as smoking, drinking, etc. were different as well. There is a lot more land per person in Canada, which I assume would translate to lower pollution levels.
I'm not saying that the results are not due to health care differences - I'm saying that that's just one possible factor.
For the curious (or those procrastinating – *cough*) the actual (provisional) paper is available online. There was an effort to control for variables other than health-care between the two populations: namely, results from the survey about health-related quality of life were adjusted for "major determinants of health, including body mass index, smoking, education, gender, race, and income." Similarly, the reason white-only populations were compared was to eliminate variables to better focus on the potential effects of differing health care policy and levels of social and economic inequality.
Based on those controls, the authors argue that "the difference in health between the two countries seems to be associated with substantial differences in access to care as well as substantial differences in social and economic inequality." They don't really make an attempt to quantify the correlation, though.
In fact, they pretty much admit the results mainly have implications for future research: "The Joint Survey is valuable in that it provides a comprehensive and direct comparison of the health in the US and Canada. Yet distinguishing among the potential explanations for the differences in health between the two countries would require longitudinal data. Perhaps it is time for Canada and the US to contemplate a joint longitudinal survey."
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