Blog Assignment #3: U.S performance on various health measures

For this week's blog assignment, we were asked to read an article on the perforce of the united states on various health measures compared to the other 29 OECD countries. These various helath measures were divided to the total 5 criteria: health resources, health spending, health status, health-care activities, and risk factors. I have always known that the amount of money U.S spends on health care is a lot, but I never knew that its health care status is actually a lot worse than that of the other countries. Statistics that U.S recorded the highest among the OECD countries are MRI units per milion population, total spending on health care, helath spending per catpita, total spending on pharmaceuticals per capita, and funny and obvious enough, obese population.I still remember when I first came to America from Korea, I was surprised by the number of obese people on the street. Very proud of our public health efforts, U.S recorded the lowest on tobacco consumption. Among the health measures, i was very stunned by how high America's infant mortality is. Although U.s did not record the lowest,it's definitely higher than the OECD average. Because of improvements in medical care these days, I expected infant mortality of America to be very low, but it's still higher than the OECD average. On the sidenotes, (this is not related to public health) I was also surprised by the number of medical graduates of the U.S. U.S also had fewer number of medical graduates than OECD average; the number of practicing physicians and of practicing nurses were lower than OECD average. As a premed student, I just don't understand why it is so hard to get into medical schools and become a doctor in the U.S when we have significantly fewer number of practicing physicians, nurses and of medical school graduates. We comparatively rated low in doctor consultations per capita. Though it's important to find intelligent people for jobs like doctor or nurse who deals with one's health and life, but in terms of public health, wouldnt it be more advantageous to accept more medical school applicants? I was also surprised by the number of MRI and CT scanners units per per million population in a good way! When I first read these two i thought of secondary prevention. As I mentioned earlier in this blog post, "obese population" seemed very obvious to me and i found it least surprising. It is so obvious considering typical greasy American diet, and you can see so many obese people on the street as well. Among these health measures, i thought, as I mentioned already, MRI and CT units per million population show the greatest potential future impact on thepublic's health; public health is concerned with the health of the general public. We have learned public health officials approach three ways to improve the health of the general public: primary prevention, secondary prevention, and tertiary prevention. I think high number of MRI and CT units indicate that secondary prevention is being enforced well and this helps early detection of diseases, therefore improving the health of the public. Although U.S recorded the highest total spending on medical care, ironically, its public spending on health is significantly lower than OECD average. I think this paradox is coming from people who do not have or cannot afford insurance. I think ensuring health insurace of everyone would reduce this discrepency.