Opinion: How to close America's life expectancy gap

It’s no secret that life expectancy in the United States is among the lowest in the developed world and has been since long before the Covid-19 pandemic.  The United States ranked 29^th in life expectancy at birth among peer nations in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development despite spending almost twice as much on clinical care per person as the average OECD nation. Yet the United States ranks second in the world when it comes to self-reported health status.

People often blame our health care system — hospitals, doctors and other health providers, insurers — as the reason for the disappointing performance on life expectancy at birth. As physicians and public health professionals, we agree that there are big problems that need to be fixed. But much of Americans’ lagging life expectancy is unrelated to issues in the clinical health care system.

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