SCIENCE IN THE NEWS #2079 - DigestBy StaffThis is Bob Doughty.And this is Warren Scheer with SCIENCE IN THE NEWS, a VOA Special English program about recent developments in Science. Today, we tell about a study of health care systems around the world. We tell about why heart attack patients may need to stay in a hospital for only a short time. We tell about a chemical to kill insects that has been banned. And we tell about a link between pollution and rain.
The World Health Organization has released the results of a study of health care systems in one-hundred-ninety-one nations. It is the first time the WHO has studied the performance of health care systems in its member countries. The study found that how much money a country spends on health care appears to have little effect on the kind of care people receive.
WHO officials used five measures to compare the performance of health care systems. They are the general level of the health of the population. Differences in health among the population. The way a health system reacts to the needs of the population. How people with different economic situations are served by the system. And, who pays the costs of health care.The WHO study found that France provides the best health care in the world. Italy has the second best health care system. Other major countries that provide the best health care are Spain, Oman, Austria and Japan. In general, health care systems in richer countries are better than those in poorer ones.
However, the WHO report says money alone is not enough to guarantee good health care. For example, the report notes that the United States spends more money on health care than any other nation. It spends an average of about four-thousand dollars each year on health care for every American citizen. Yet the United States was thirty-seventh on the list of the best health care systems.WHO official David Evans says the health care system in the United States reacted well to the needs of the American population. In general, life expectancy rates also were high. However, Mr. Evans says the United States did not do well in the area of financial fairness. He says many poor people in the United States do not have health insurance to help pay for medical costs. And rich people generally get better health care than poor people.
The new WHO report names countries that have the least fair financing of health systems. They include Brazil, Burma, Cambodia, China, Russia and Sierra Leone.
The report urges countries to expand health care to as much of the population as possible. WHO officials say this can be done with private insurance agreements, taxes or government programs.
((MUSIC BRIDGE))A new study has suggested that people recovering from a heart attack can be safety treated in a hospital for a shorter length of time. American research scientists found that most heart attack patients can be safely released from a hospital after only three days. The researchers say this would shorten the length of hospital stays by two or more days and reduce the cost of treatment.
Kristin Newby of the Duke Clinical Research Institute in Durham, North Carolina led the group that organized the study. She and her team examined medical records of more than twenty-two-thousand people who suffered a heart attack.
The researchers say each patient had a normal recovery during three days in the hospital after the heart attack. They did not suffer serious health problems, such as a second heart attack.Only sixteen of the twenty-two-thousand patients suffered serious heart problems during the fourth day in the hospital. Thirteen received emergency treatment and survived for at least twenty-four hours. Three others died. The researchers say the fourth day in the hospital produced only two more days in life expectancy for an average patient.
The study was published in the New England Journal of Medicine. The journal also published a commentary on the findings. Two doctors warned health care providers against using the study to limit hospital treatment for heart attack patients to three days. They s