The quality of life depends on several factors that affect people’s health. With the fast paced lifestyle that the many are practicing, the public is at risk of developing diseases if they do not make changes on unpleasant ways. The United States has a private health care system (is the only wealthy, industrialized nation that does not have a universal health care system) with government legislation mandating that everyone have some form of insurance. Access to health care changes from state to state and on factors such as income and occupation.
Here are some facts about health and health care in the United States:
Human Development Index is one of the main ways of seeing how healthy a society is. It includes factors such as life expectancy and well being but also factors not directly related to health like literacy rates. The state with the highest human development index is Connecticut with 0.962. The lowest is Mississippi with just 0.867. Despite being much lower, even Mississippi is in the UN calculated Very High category.
The highest life expectancy of any state is in Hawaii where you can be expected to live until 81 and a half. In the mainland 48 states, the highest is in Minnesota with a life expectancy of 80.9. The lowest life expectancy is in Mississippi at just 74.8 years.
The most obese state is Mississippi, where 34.4% of adults are obese. The least obese is Hawaii, with 20.7%. Notice this matches precisely with life expectancy. The least overweight state is Colorado, yet still, 55% of adults are obese. The most overweight state is Mississippi again with 67.4%. In children Mississippi isn’t doing as badly as other states, the worst is Delaware, where 22.8% of kids are obese. The healthiest children are in Utah, where only 8.5% are overweight.
The state with the highest fertility rate is Utah, where each woman can be expected to give birth to 2.449 babies in her lifetime. The least fertile is Rhode Island, where the average is just 1.63 children.
The most common cause of death in the United States was health disease at 25% of all deaths. The second most common was cancer, at 23%.
A fifth of Americans now meet the federal guidelines on working out, which is 2 and a half-hour of aerobic activity a week.
About 20% of the US smokes, which hasn’t been affected by smoking bans and tax hikes on cigarettes. Smoking is more common among American men than women.
Safe sex campaigns in schools appear to be having an impact: In 2009, 61% of high school students who were sexually active said they were having safe sex, compared with 46% in 1991.
11% of American adults have diabetes, and 30% of those aged 65 or older.
Interesting Facts about Health around the world
The highest body temperature
The highest body temperature was recorded in 1980 to a man named Willie Jones from Atlanta, Georgia. When admitted to the emergency room, his temperature was equal to 46.5C/115F. The patient survived and was discharged from the hospital after 24 days.
The lowest body temperature
The lowest documented temperature of the human body was recorded on February 23, 1994, in Regine, Saskatchewan Ave., Canada, with 2-year-old Karlie Kozolofsky. The door of her house was accidentally locked, and Karlie remained in the cold for 6 hours at a temperature of -22C/-7.6F, her body temperature was 14.2C/57.56F.
2533 foreign bodies were found in the stomach of a 42-year-old woman who was suffering from obsessive ingestion of objects, including 947 safety pins. At the same time, the woman complained of “mild abdominal pain.”
A certain K. Kilner from Zimbabwe took the largest number of pills. In his 21 years of treatment, he took 565,939 pills.
The most injections were delivered to Samuel Daydson from the UK. In all his life he was given at least 78,900 doses of insulin.
The most operations were carried out by Charles Jensen from the United States. In the period from 1954 to 1994, the doctor did to him 970 neoplasm removal operations.
