By: Mike Crooks
Want to live to a ripe old age? Then live in Australia (if you’re not here already).
An American university study has revealed that Australia is the world’s healthiest nation among the wealthiest English-speaking countries in the world.
Published by the British Medical Journal, the research showed that Australians are ahead in life expectancy, due to a number of factors.
And the report suggests that the other countries should look to Australia as a model on how to live healthier – and longer.
Australia offers “a potential model for lower-performing anglophone countries to reduce both premature mortality and inequalities in life expectancy,” the study said.
Life expectancy
The study, which was conducted by Pennsylvania State University, focused on wealthy English-speaking countries including the UK, the US, Canada, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand.
The research revealed that Australian women have an average life expectancy of 85, while for men it is 81.
In the UK, it is 83 for women and 79 for men.
And in the US, the life expectancy is 81 for women and 76 for men – five years less than for Australian men.
Associate professor of sociology and demography Jessica Ho, who is one of the authors of the paper, said one of the main drivers of why America’s life expectancy is lower than that of Australia’s, was that young people in the US are dying from largely preventable causes – including gun-related incidents.
“What the study shows is that a peer country like Australia far outperforms the US and was able to get its young adult mortality under control,” Ms Ho said.
“It has really low levels of gun deaths and homicides, lower levels of drug and alcohol use and better performance on chronic diseases, the latter of which points to lifestyle factors, health behaviors and health care performance.”
In both the US and the UK, there was also evidence of “geographical inequalities in life expectancy”, where people in “wealthier” areas lived longer, on average, than people in less affluent areas.
(The study does not appear to take into account the lower life expectancy of Indigenous Australians.)
No smoking please
The study pointed to Australia’s proactive public health efforts, including the drive to reduce smoking rates (through such measures as the Quit campaign, high taxes on cigarettes, and plain packaging).
Rates of drug and alcohol abuse are also significantly lower in Australia than in the US and Canada.
“Australian men have had faster reductions in smoking-attributable mortality since the 1980s…” the report read.
“Australian women had the lowest levels of smoking attributable mortality… These patterns could contribute to Australia’s lower mortality from respiratory diseases, cancers and circulatory diseases.”
In fact, the report found that across all the nations, there are better treatments for heart disease and cancer in Australia.
And the study also praised the mental health support available for young adults in Australia.
Such support reduces preventable deaths including from suicide.
Immigration
Another possible reason for Australia’s longer life expectancy, the report suggests, is the nation’s high level of immigration.
“Australia has the highest foreign-born share of its population, reaching nearly 30 per cent in 2018,” the authors wrote.
“Prior studies have found that immigrants, who tend to have higher life expectancy than the native-born, can make important contributions to national life expectancy.”
Room for improvement
Yet there is much work to be done on Australia’s health front. The report revealed that Australia has the second-highest obesity rate among the English-speaking nations.
With that in mind, the report said that Australia’s health and life expectancy levels “could be improved further”.
Still, Ms Ho said that Australia “is a model for how Americans can do better and achieve not only a higher life expectancy but also lower geographic inequality in life expectancy.”
For more information on the report visit here.
Article supplied with thanks to Hope Media.
Feature image: Photo by Road Trip with Raj on Unsplash