Falling behind: life expectancy in US counties from 2000 to 2007 in an international context.

ABSTRACT:

Background

The United States health care debate has focused on the nation's uniquely high rates of lack of insurance and poor health outcomes relative to other high-income countries. Large disparities in health outcomes are well-documented in the US, but the most recent assessment of county disparities in mortality is from 1999. It is critical to tracking progress of health reform legislation to have an up-to-date assessment of disparities in life expectancy across counties. US disparities can be seen more clearly in the context of how progress in each county compares to international trends.

Methods

We use newly released mortality data by age, sex, and county for the US from 2000 to 2007 to compute life tables separately for each sex, for all races combined, for whites, and

SUBMITTER: Kulkarni SC 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3141397 | biostudies-literature | 2011 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature