English healthier than Americans

The UK government is seeking to shake up the NHS and open it up to private providers of healthcare, in effect making health care in Britain more like that in the US.

But a new study published today has found that the English are generally healthier than their American counterparts - even though healthcare costs in the US are higher than in the UK.

Comparing data from two surveys that represent the health status of both nations at different age groups, the study found that Americans have higher rates of chronic diseases and markers for diseases than the English at all ages. The reasons for this disparity are not yet clear.

Conditions assessed in the research included obesity, hypertension, diabetes, low high-density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol, high cholesterol ratio as well as a range of other diseases and markers for diseases. The studies also included self-reported conditions.

For every condition studied, except for high blood pressure, the disesease rates in England were less than in the US, and in all these cases the difference was considered to be statistically significant.

Even changing the definitions of what constituted particular conditions (as can happen in different health care regimes) did not impact the results of the study, and the findings in each case were broadly consistent with other surveys of health matters in both countries.

The study, published in the American Journal of Epidemiology, also found that the differences in rates for each condition continued across age groups.

Reasons for differences

Analysing the results, the authors were unable to offer concrete reasons for the differences in health outcomes between the two countries. However they did speculate that possible factors could include:

• Higher rates of screening for some conditions
• Greater use of certain procedures
• Higher survival rates for cerebrovascular disease in the US

But these factors alone are not sufficient to explain the higher death rates in the US in every age group except for 65+.

Another possibility is that despite higher health care spending in the US, the UK has higher levels of preventative health care, and Americans make fewer visits to their doctor than the English. And when in hospital, Americans tend to have shorter stays which may result in some conditions being missed.

The study will further fuel debate about the effectiveness of private health care, as the UK government seeks to implement wide ranging reforms of the NHS.

This article was published on Wed 9 March 2011