Seven reasons why American children fail to thrive

Of the world's 20 wealthiest democracies, the United States scores low on the ability to keep children alive. Although the United States spends more on per capita health care for children than any other country, babies born in the United States are 76% more likely to die before adulthood than other richest countries in the world. A frightening new study, published in the journal Health Affairs, attempts to explain why this happens. The study analyzed data from the World Health Organization and the global human mortality database to determine the ranking of OECD countries in child mortality. The countries with the highest infant mortality rates are Iceland, Japan and Sweden. For children aged 1-19, the top countries are Sweden, the Netherlands and Japan. According to the study, there are seven reasons why American children fail to thrive. Credit: tatyanatoshikova / iStock / gettyimages

1. Researchers looked at data from 1961 to 2010, and since the 1980s, child mortality in the United States has not declined as it has in other rich democracies. According to the study's lead author, Achish takral, the rise in child poverty in the 1980s was directly related to the backwardness of the United States. In the 1980s, a quarter of children living in large cities were classified as living below the poverty line, which directly affected children's access to health care, nutritious food and safe living space. Among infants born in the United States, the main cause of death is extremely immature - in other words, extremely immature at birth, i.e. gestational age less than 28 weeks. Babies in the United States are three times more likely to be affected than those in other OECD countries. Not coincidentally, babies born in poverty are more likely to give birth prematurely. Although the preterm birth rate may be higher in low-income countries, the United States is still the top 10 countries with the largest number of preterm births. According to the World Health Organization, now listen to the following:

why the obsession with "happiness" in the United States is completely stressful. In the United States, SIDS is 2.3 times higher than in 19 other countries. It is usually associated with babies sleeping on their stomach, with an estimated 2500 babies dying each year in small island developing States. "The frequency of child deaths in the democracies we studied was lower than 50 years ago," explains study leader takral. But we found that children die more often in the United States than in any other similar country. "One explanation is that American car culture is pervasive. In fact, according to the health affairs study, the main cause of death for adolescents aged 15 to 19 is motor vehicle accidents. Americans are twice as likely to die in a car accident as OECD 19.

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5. "Gun attack" is the second major cause of youth death, which is related to guns. Research shows that American teenagers are 82 times more likely to die from gun related deaths than other countries, which is very frightening.

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6. The fragmented healthcare system in the U.S.

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researchers pointed out that the fragmented healthcare system in the United States led to child mortality "in the context of a fragile social safety net failure" in order to buffer vulnerable groups. " Many women are not eligible for health care until after childbirth, rather than during pregnancy, and without proper prenatal care, there could be health problems with their children, taklaer said.

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7. Despite the increase in per capita health care spending in the United States, spending on child health and welfare programs is far lower in the United States than in other rich countries, the study said. For this reason, the problem is timely: funding for the child health insurance scheme, which will help 9 million low-income children access health care, will expire at the end of January. Let's face it: many of these children have the potential to become statistics.

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What do you think? Are you surprised that the United States lags far behind other countries in terms of child mortality? Why do you think we can't develop in the same way? How important is a child health insurance plan to keep children healthy? Please let us know in the comments below.

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