Brits Healthier Than Americans? (Part IV) Gail Heriot

Previous posts here, here and here.

Two more things:

(1)  A friend of mine questioned my willingness to discount the self-reported data in the JAMA study that found middle-aged white Americans to be in worse health than their English counterparts.  She argued that surely there is no significant room for exaggeration in response to the question, “Have you ever been told by a doctor that you have cancer?” Either you have or you haven’t. 

I disagree.  Large numbers of Americans (and presumably Brits as well) have had basal cell carcinoma skin cancers.  They are not a serious problem except in unusual cases.  Whether a interviewee who has been diagnosed with one (and had it removed in the doctor’s office never to think about it again) will answer “yes” or “no” to such a question is unclear to me.

(2)   Suppose Tom and I are right to be skeptical about the study’s findings and that middle-aged white Americans are not unhealthy relative to their English counterparts.  Given how much more money we spend on health care, that’s still not a happy story for those of us on this side of the Atlantic.