4 ms·

Infant mortality is also 75% higher in the US compared to France: https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2091rank.html https://ww

Infant mortality is also 75% higher in the US compared to France: https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2091rank.html https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/...

barry-cotter 10y ago
Most of the difference between US and other OECD countries in infant mortality is that the US has a much lower standard for what's considered a viable birth. Basically, lots of what in France are classified as still births would be infant deaths in the US.
- Normal_gaussian 10y ago
  Using: http://chartsbin.com/view/1445 http://chartsbin.com/view/1445 and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_infant_mortality_rate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_infant_mo... births out of 1000 that are stillbirths: France 3.87 UK 3.50 USA 2.95 Germany 2.43 Infant Mortality (under 5) per 1000 live births USA 5.87 UK 4.38 France 4.30 Germany 3.70 Combining the two for a birthed (Still or not) and didn't make it to 5 rate: USA: 8.8 France: 8.2 UK: 7.9 Germany: 6.1 Obviously the studies aren't matched, but it does suggest that the variance isn't as great as either statistic shows, and there likely is a very strong ranking.
  - brianwawok 10y ago
    Now refine that down to college educated nonndrug using people. I suspect it would be even more narrow.
    - witty_username 10y ago
      Could downvoter(s) explain?
      - jdietrich 10y ago
        He's literally asking us to disregard the health outcomes for a particularly vulnerable section of society. That strongly implies that these people aren't worth factoring in to our evaluation of a healthcare system, that their health simply doesn't matter. On a purely statistical level, it makes very little sense. Does he believe that poverty and drug addiction are uniquely American phenomena? Does he believe that the healthcare system has no impact on the number of people with drug addictions or chronic poverty-related diseases?
        douche 10y ago
        On the other hand, if you want to compare the enormous, diverse US to tiny, homogeneous EU countries 1-1, that's somewhat disingenuous as well.
        brianwawok 10y ago
        I'm pointing out that you are comparing apples to oranges. France is closer in composition to New Hampshire than the US as a whole. So comparing health outcomes of the US as a whole to France is wrong. Compare health outcomes of say New Hampshire or Vermont to France.... This is the same mistake the news and popular politicians use to exploit the groupthink. "Look how bad the US is at X compared to this homogenous European country". Be it prison rate or poverty level or what have you.
        jdietrich 10y ago
        >France is closer in composition to New Hampshire than the US as a whole. Does New Hampshire have any cities where 30-40% of the population are Muslim? http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/resentment-growing-christians-muslims-marseilles/ http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/resentment-growing-christians... To describe France as homogeneous is utterly, profoundly ignorant.
        brianwawok 10y ago
        Compared to the United States, it is. If you want actual numbers, you can start here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_ranked_by_ethnic_and_cultural_diversity_level https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_ranked_by_et... It is not a huge difference, but it's there. I wouldn't consider religion the top factor to pivot on, I would consider things like native language a better model. Here is data that suggests infant mortality ranges from 9.6 in Mississippi to 4.2 in MA. So by this metric, infant mortality is in fact LOWER for many people than in France (or many parts of Europe). http://kff.org/other/state-indicator/infant-death-rate/?currentTimeframe=0 http://kff.org/other/state-indicator/infant-death-rate/?curr...
    - alkonaut 10y ago
      Why would one take a subset of healthy people in a comparison? If anything, healthcare systems ought to be ranked on the life expectancies of the bottom percentile. Making a great health care system for the not-poor, not-addicted and those without preexisting conditions isn't a hard problem. Part of the difference in mindset might be that addiction or poverty is partly seen as self inflicted in the US whereas I would always classify both as being mostly beyond the control of the individual. Even with our socialized medicine rich people eat bettter, excercise more, stress less and thus live longer. I'm glad our healthcare system offsets the life expectancy difference down to 5-10 years between me and a poor person, and I'm happy to pay for it.
    - Normal_gaussian 10y ago
      Because you are now selecting for that which is untreatable, assuming access to finance and an education of the parents are the primary factors in treatable deaths. If that is the case the interesting comparison would be the rate for the populace excluding those people.
      - brianwawok 10y ago
        Here is data that suggests infant mortality ranges from 9.6 in Mississippi to 4.2 in MA. So by this metric, infant mortality is in fact LOWER for many people than in France (or many parts of Europe). http://kff.org/other/state-indicator/infant-death-rate/?currentTimeframe=0 http://kff.org/other/state-indicator/infant-death-rate/?curr...

barry-cotter 10y ago

Most of the difference between US and other OECD countries in infant mortality is that the US has a much lower standard for what's considered a viable birth. Basically, lots of what in France are classified as still births would be infant deaths in the US.

Normal_gaussian 10y ago
Using: http://chartsbin.com/view/1445 http://chartsbin.com/view/1445 and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_infant_mortality_rate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_infant_mo... births out of 1000 that are stillbirths: France 3.87 UK 3.50 USA 2.95 Germany 2.43 Infant Mortality (under 5) per 1000 live births USA 5.87 UK 4.38 France 4.30 Germany 3.70 Combining the two for a birthed (Still or not) and didn't make it to 5 rate: USA: 8.8 France: 8.2 UK: 7.9 Germany: 6.1 Obviously the studies aren't matched, but it does suggest that the variance isn't as great as either statistic shows, and there likely is a very strong ranking.
- brianwawok 10y ago
  Now refine that down to college educated nonndrug using people. I suspect it would be even more narrow.
  - witty_username 10y ago
    Could downvoter(s) explain?
    - jdietrich 10y ago
      He's literally asking us to disregard the health outcomes for a particularly vulnerable section of society. That strongly implies that these people aren't worth factoring in to our evaluation of a healthcare system, that their health simply doesn't matter. On a purely statistical level, it makes very little sense. Does he believe that poverty and drug addiction are uniquely American phenomena? Does he believe that the healthcare system has no impact on the number of people with drug addictions or chronic poverty-related diseases?
      - douche 10y ago
        On the other hand, if you want to compare the enormous, diverse US to tiny, homogeneous EU countries 1-1, that's somewhat disingenuous as well.
      - brianwawok 10y ago
        I'm pointing out that you are comparing apples to oranges. France is closer in composition to New Hampshire than the US as a whole. So comparing health outcomes of the US as a whole to France is wrong. Compare health outcomes of say New Hampshire or Vermont to France.... This is the same mistake the news and popular politicians use to exploit the groupthink. "Look how bad the US is at X compared to this homogenous European country". Be it prison rate or poverty level or what have you.
        jdietrich 10y ago
        >France is closer in composition to New Hampshire than the US as a whole. Does New Hampshire have any cities where 30-40% of the population are Muslim? http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/resentment-growing-christians-muslims-marseilles/ http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/resentment-growing-christians... To describe France as homogeneous is utterly, profoundly ignorant.
        brianwawok 10y ago
        Compared to the United States, it is. If you want actual numbers, you can start here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_ranked_by_ethnic_and_cultural_diversity_level https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_ranked_by_et... It is not a huge difference, but it's there. I wouldn't consider religion the top factor to pivot on, I would consider things like native language a better model. Here is data that suggests infant mortality ranges from 9.6 in Mississippi to 4.2 in MA. So by this metric, infant mortality is in fact LOWER for many people than in France (or many parts of Europe). http://kff.org/other/state-indicator/infant-death-rate/?currentTimeframe=0 http://kff.org/other/state-indicator/infant-death-rate/?curr...
  - alkonaut 10y ago
    Why would one take a subset of healthy people in a comparison? If anything, healthcare systems ought to be ranked on the life expectancies of the bottom percentile. Making a great health care system for the not-poor, not-addicted and those without preexisting conditions isn't a hard problem. Part of the difference in mindset might be that addiction or poverty is partly seen as self inflicted in the US whereas I would always classify both as being mostly beyond the control of the individual. Even with our socialized medicine rich people eat bettter, excercise more, stress less and thus live longer. I'm glad our healthcare system offsets the life expectancy difference down to 5-10 years between me and a poor person, and I'm happy to pay for it.
  - Normal_gaussian 10y ago
    Because you are now selecting for that which is untreatable, assuming access to finance and an education of the parents are the primary factors in treatable deaths. If that is the case the interesting comparison would be the rate for the populace excluding those people.
    - brianwawok 10y ago
      Here is data that suggests infant mortality ranges from 9.6 in Mississippi to 4.2 in MA. So by this metric, infant mortality is in fact LOWER for many people than in France (or many parts of Europe). http://kff.org/other/state-indicator/infant-death-rate/?currentTimeframe=0 http://kff.org/other/state-indicator/infant-death-rate/?curr...