Study: Canadians healthier than Americans
You can add Canadians to the list of foreigners who are healthier than Americans. Americans are 42 percent more likely than Canadians to have diabetes, 32 percent more likely to have high blood pressure, and 12 percent more likely to have arthritis, Harvard Medical School researchers found. That is according to a survey in which American and Canadian adults were asked over the telephone about their health.
The study comes less than a month after other researchers reported that middle-aged, white Americans are much sicker than their counterparts in England.
"We're really falling behind other nations," said Dr. Steffie Woolhandler, a co-author of the Canadian study.
Canada's national health insurance program is at least part of the reason for the differences found in the study, Woolhandler said. Universal coverage makes it easier for more Canadians to get disease-preventing health services, she said.
