Behavior change and reducing health disparities☆
Section snippets
US life expectancy in international perspective
International studies of life expectancy have gained particular attention in the last few years. These studies tend to show that the life expectancy advantage experienced by American citizens has been on the decline. One study from the National Research Council considered current life expectancy for 50-year-old women between the years 1955 and 2010 (Crimmins et al., 2011). Current life expectancy is the number of years of life on average remaining once a milestone age has been reached. So,
Conclusions
International studies suggest that the rate of increase in life expectancy for Americans is falling behind other rich countries. Despite remarkable improvements in medical and surgical therapies, we must also confront limitations of medical science. Most estimates suggest that medical care accounts for only a small portion of the variation in life expectancy. Behavioral and social factors are likely to play a substantial role in determining how long we live.
We are only at the early stages of
Conflict of interest statement
This paper was completed when the author was an employee of the National Institutes of Health. The opinions expressed herein and the interpretation and reporting of these data are the responsibility of the author and in no way should be seen as an official recommendation, interpretation, or policy of the National Institutes of Health or the US Government.
References (38)
- et al.
Educational attainment and late life telomere length in the Health, Aging and Body Composition Study
Brain Behav. Immun.
(2013) - et al.
Impact of optimal medical therapy with or without percutaneous coronary intervention on long-term cardiovascular end points in patients with stable coronary artery disease (from the COURAGE Trial)
Am. J. Cardiol.
(2009) - et al.
Understanding differences in health behaviors by education
Journal of Health Economics
(2010) Quality of life: An outcomes perspective
Arch. Phys. Med. Rehabil.
(2002)- et al.
Five preference-based indexes in cataract and heart failure patients were not equally responsive to change
J. Clin. Epidemiol.
(2011) - et al.
Effects of intensive glucose lowering in type 2 diabetes
N. Engl. J. Med.
(2008) - et al.
Influence of estrogen plus progestin on breast cancer and mammography in healthy postmenopausal women
JAMA
(2003) - et al.
The effect of education on adult mortality and health: Evidence from Britain
Am. Econ. Rev.
(2013) - et al.
Life expectancy in relation to cardiovascular risk factors: 38 year follow-up of 19,000 men in the Whitehall study
BMJ
(2009) - et al.
Explaining divergent levels of longevity in high-income countries
(2011)
Normalization of hemoglobin level in patients with chronic kidney disease and anemia
N. Engl. J. Med.
Estimated deaths attributable to social factors in the United States
Am. J. Public Health
Publication of trials funded by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute
N. Engl. J. Med.
Screening for breast cancer with mammography
Cochrane Database Syst. Rev.
Deaths: Preliminary data for 2011
Natl. Vital Stat. Rep.
Factors of risk in the development of coronary heart disease—six year follow-up experience. The Framingham Study
Ann. Intern. Med.
Health outcome models for policy analysis
Health Psychol.
Behavior as the central outcome in health care
Am. Psychol.
The Ziggy theorem: Toward an outcomes-focused health psychology
Health Psychol.
Cited by (27)
A course in medical device design & commercialization for medical students pursuing surgical fields
2023, American Journal of SurgeryCitation Excerpt :Successful development of medical devices requires multidisciplinary collaborations across a broad range of stakeholders and access to substantial resources. Despite access to both, the U.S. currently outspends and underperforms as compared to most wealthy nations.1 This disparity between the input and output of the US healthcare system offers opportunity for optimization.
Some current dimensions of the behavioral economics of health-related behavior change
2016, Preventive MedicineCitation Excerpt :Efforts to understand and improve health-related behavior change is of increasing importance as the United States (US) continues to underachieve on important markers of population health (Henningfield, 2014; Higgins, 2014; Kaplan, 2014; Schroeder, 2007; Schroeder, 2016).
Reducing Health Inequities in the U.S.: Recommendations From the NHLBI's Health Inequities Think Tank Meeting
2016, Journal of the American College of CardiologyCitation Excerpt :Participants at the Think Tank also recognized that, despite the importance of health care, improved health services alone might be insufficient to address all health inequities. Behavioral, social, community, and policy interventions, in addition to environmental and policy changes for improving health and healthy life expectancy, deserve increased attention, as they may be much more potent than medical interventions (24). The failure of our research to reach full translation is due, at least in part, to the barriers that many patients face in adhering to provider recommendations because of the circumstances in which they live and the incentives within health care.
Can social policy influence socioeconomic disparities? Korean War GI Bill eligibility and markers of depression
2016, Annals of EpidemiologyCitation Excerpt :Each year, the United States pays double the health care costs of other developed countries per capita ($8745 vs. $3484) [1]. Despite this huge contribution to the treatment of disease, socioeconomic health disparities in the United States remain the largest in the developed world [2] partially because medical care accounts for just 10% of the variability in health outcomes [3], whereas social and behavioral factors account for approximately 55% of the total variation in health [4]. Although the potential for social and behavioral interventions to affect health may be much larger than the impact of medical interventions, health evaluations of population-level social interventions are scarce [4].
Editorial: 2nd Special Issue on behavior change, health, and health disparities
2015, Preventive MedicineBehavior change, health, and health disparities: An introduction
2014, Preventive Medicine
- ☆
Presented at the Vermont conference on behavior change, health and health disparities. September 26, 2013.