大會主題演講 Keynote Speech

How Harmful Public Policies Have Led to the Decline in Life Expectancy in the United States: An Example for Other High Income Countries.

Relative to residents of other high-income countries, Americans look toxic. Life expectancy in high-income countries has improved dramatically, except in the United States which has fallen behind. The divergence has occurred unabated for over 40 years. What are the likely factors that underlie this trend? What are the implications for other countries? This lecture reviews the ways in which growing social inequality in health, federal policies and the rise of New Federalism may have contributed to this adverse trend in U.S. life expectancy. I also raise the issue of how fast-growing geographic inequality of mortality of U.S. states may be dampening the overall national trend. I hypothesize that while much of the geographic divergence reflects many different policies, politics has become a growing force in increasing an array of health risks for many Americans. This is a looming issue in other middle- and high-income countries.