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Every study ranking nations by health or living standards invariably offers Scandinavian social democracies a chance to show their quiet dominance. A new analysis published this week—perhaps the most comprehensive ever—is no different. But what it does reveal are the broad shortcomings of sustainable development efforts, the new shorthand for not killing ourselves or the planet, as well as the specific afflictions of a certain North American country.
Iceland and Sweden share the top slot with Singapore as world leaders when it comes to health goals set by the United Nations, according to a report published in the Lancet . Using the UN's sustainable development goals as guideposts, which measure the obvious (poverty, clean water, education) and less obvious (societal inequality, industry innovation), more than 1,870 researchers in 124 countries compiled data on 33 different indicators of progress toward the UN goals related to health.
The massive study emerged from a decade-long collaboration focused on the worldwide distribution of disease. About a year and a half ago, the researchers involved decided their data might help measure progress on what may be the single most ambitious undertaking humans have ever committed themselves to: survival. In doing so, they came up with some disturbing findings, including that the country with the biggest economy (not to mention, if we're talking about health, multibillion-dollar health-food and fitness industries) ranks No. 28 overall, between Japan and Estonia.
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The voluminous work that went into the paper may make measuring the UN goals on health seem even more daunting: The researchers were able so far to evaluate just 70 percent of the health-related indicators called for by the UN.
It may not be pretty, but "we have no chance of success if we can't agree on what's critical," said Linda Fried, dean of the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by quintessence on Sunday September 25 2016, @01:40AM
True, but considering where the US was in comparison to almost any other country on earth not that long ago, it's obvious it is on a painful downhill slide in nearly any metric you can think of (freedom, quality of life, etc.).
Rankings give you an indication of what might be working better in other countries, and standards you could adopt to improve.
Not really here to beat the drum of nationalism, but you'd think a country as wealthy as the US should be doing better.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 25 2016, @07:25PM
True, but considering where the US was in comparison to almost any other country on earth not that long ago, it's obvious it is on a painful downhill slide in nearly any metric you can think of (freedom, quality of life, etc.).
No. By practically any measure the US is still way better than it was 50 years ago. Other countries have improved more. But they had much further to go. This is not a zero sum game.
Average life expectancy at birth: [infoplease.com]
Percent of households with air-conditioning: [freeby50.com]
Percent of population with less than a high-school education: [census.gov]
From 1965 to 2015 inflation-adjusted average household income increased by a minimum of 19% for all levels of society. [advisorperspectives.com] That's despite the average number of people in a household [statista.com] decreasing from 3.33 people in 1960 to 2.54 in 2015 due to lower rates of child-birth and more single-parent households, so effective income per person has increased by a lot more.