The media is all over a study called "What Changes in Survival Rates Tell Us about U.S. Health Care," which blames flaws in the nation's health-care system (not obesity, smoking, etc.) as the main culprit of our problems. It seems we are lagging behind in life expectancy when compared to such nations as Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom. The web article that I found this from quotes the lead author, Dr. Peter Muennig, assistant professor of Health Policy and Management at the Mailman School of Public Health, as saying:
"But what really surprised us was that all of the usual suspects -- smoking, obesity, traffic accidents, homicides and racial and ethnic diversity are not the culprits. The U.S. doesn't stand out as doing any worse in these areas than any of the other countries we studied, leading us to believe that failings in the U.S. health care system, such as costly specialized and fragmented care, are likely playing a large role in this relatively poor performance on improvements in life expectancy."
That is when I found out that the study was funded by The Commonwealth Fund. I never heard of them so I looked them up. Here is their mission statement:
The Commonwealth Fund is a private foundation that aims to promote a high performing health care system that achieves better access, improved quality, and greater efficiency, particularly for society's most vulnerable, including low-income people, the uninsured, minority Americans, young children, and elderly adults.
The Fund carries out this mandate by supporting independent research on health care issues and making grants to improve health care practice and policy. An international program in health policy is designed to stimulate innovative policies and practices in the United States and other industrialized countries.
"But what really surprised us was that all of the usual suspects -- smoking, obesity, traffic accidents, homicides and racial and ethnic diversity are not the culprits. The U.S. doesn't stand out as doing any worse in these areas than any of the other countries we studied, leading us to believe that failings in the U.S. health care system, such as costly specialized and fragmented care, are likely playing a large role in this relatively poor performance on improvements in life expectancy."
That is when I found out that the study was funded by The Commonwealth Fund. I never heard of them so I looked them up. Here is their mission statement:
The Commonwealth Fund is a private foundation that aims to promote a high performing health care system that achieves better access, improved quality, and greater efficiency, particularly for society's most vulnerable, including low-income people, the uninsured, minority Americans, young children, and elderly adults.
The Fund carries out this mandate by supporting independent research on health care issues and making grants to improve health care practice and policy. An international program in health policy is designed to stimulate innovative policies and practices in the United States and other industrialized countries.
I am all for making our healthcare system better. I am the first to call out how crappy things can be. That being said, there is no way a study funded by a group like this should be considered unbiased. It is a like a pharmaceutical company saying they compared all the drugs from their competitors and found theirs to be the best. I know, I know, it has happened before but it gets hammered by other doctors and researchers. When you dig deeper you will find that conservative groups have hammered the The Commonwealth Fund for things like this before. The media needs to be aware that this group wants to "find" results that promotes it mission.
This is like us doing an independent study showing that the Placebo Journal is the most popular medical magazine available when comparing smile ratios, laughter, pulse rate and bowel activity.
Should you believe it? In this instance.....yes.
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