U.S. Health Care from a Global Perspective, 2022: Accelerating Spending, Worsening Outcomes
Our earlier edition of U.S. Health Care from a Global Perspective noted that the United States records the poorest health outcomes among all high‑income countries.1 Americans are more likely to die younger, and from avoidable causes, than residents of peer countries.
Between January 2020 and December 2021, life expectancy dropped in the U.S. and other countries.2 Given that the pandemic remains a global health threat, we refreshed our 2019 cross‑national comparison of health‑care systems to evaluate U.S. spending, outcomes, status, and service utilization alongside Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Japan, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, South Korea, Sweden, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom. We also compare U.S. health system performance to the OECD average for the 38 high‑income countries for which data are available. The data for our analysis come from the Organisation for Economic Co‑operation and Development (OECD) and other international sources (see “How We Conducted This Study” for details).
For every metric we examine, we used the latest data available. Consequently, some country results may capture the peak of the COVID‑19 pandemic, a period marked by rising mental‑health issues, interruptions to essential services, and potentially reduced patient care.3
