In a groundbreaking study, researchers from Brown University recently shed light on a troubling reality:
Older adults in the United States — even those with significant wealth — are experiencing shorter lifespans than their peers in Europe.
As someone who practices medicine in an affluent area, I find this revelation resonates deeply.
Today, I’ll explore the study, which lasted 12 years and enrolled more than 73,000 adults aged 50 to 85 in the United States and 16 European nations.
Alarming Stats – Even Rich Americans Are Dying Younger
The statistics caught me by surprise:
The wealthiest northern and western Europeans had a mortality rate about one-third (35%) lower than the wealthiest Americans.
But wait.
The numbers are much more disturbing than you think.
The survival rate of the wealthiest Americans was equivalent to that of the poorest wealth quartile in northern and western Europe.
I repeat: The richest Americans are not just living shorter lives than their European rich counterparts.
They are equivalent to the poorest quartile in those European areas.
Methods
In this study, researchers followed adults between 50 and 85 over 12 years (from 2010 to 2022) to see how wealth affected their chances of dying.
The data came from two large studies: one in the United States (the Health and Retirement Study) and one in Europe (the Survey of Health, Aging, and Retirement in Europe), which included people from 16 countries.
To compare wealth levels fairly across different ages and countries, Researchers grouped subjects into four “wealth quartiles” — from the poorest (quartile 1) to the wealthiest (quartile 4).
The researchers then tracked who lived and who died in each wealth group.
Survival Charts – Even Rich Americans Are Dying Younger
They analyzed the data using survival charts (Kaplan–Meier curves) and a statistical model (a Cox proportional-hazards model).
These models helped them estimate the impact of wealth on lifespan while taking into account other factors that might also influence mortality, such as age, sex, whether someone was married, their education level, whether they lived in a rural or non-rural area, whether they smoked, and whether they had a long-term medical condition.
Their main goal was to understand how being wealthier or poorer affected the risk of death over time.
My Take – Even Rich Americans Are Dying Younger
First, wealth still translates to better health.
In many European countries, the top three wealth groups had similar life expectancies, meaning wealth didn’t make a huge difference among the middle and upper classes.
The biggest gap was between the poorest group and everyone else.
While the poorest consistently fared worse across all countries, most Europeans followed a more equal path than the United States.
Why? Even Rich Americans Are Dying Younger
The paper doesn’t pinpoint exact causes for the findings, but it does explore possible systemic factors that may be dragging down survival rates in the U.S., including:
- Avoidable causes of death. In the U.S., deaths from external causes — like firearms, alcohol, and suicide — were more common than in other high-income countries.
- High rates of cardiovascular death. The U.S. also struggles with notably higher rates of heart disease, a major driver of early death, compared to other wealthy nations.
- A weaker social state. European countries tend to invest more heavily in social safety nets that can shield people from the stress of events like job loss. In contrast, while the U.S. offers broader opportunities to build wealth and access education over a lifetime, healthcare is often tied to employment, leaving people more vulnerable during periods of economic instability.
Final Thoughts
I’ll end with the words of renowned writer and philosopher Henry David Thoreau, who once opined,
“The cost of a thing is the amount of what I will call life which is required to be exchanged for it, immediately or in the long run.”
Even wealth does not guarantee a healthy life in our society.
I would love to see a sharper focus on prioritizing equal access to health and well-being for all.
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