Young Americans believe they have the best health in the world...

Louie

Of course, it turns out they're actually last among developed nations in real health outcomes.

The U.S. ranks #1 among 17 affluent, western countries in the percentage of people aged 5 to 34 who rate their health as good. Unfortunately, when doctors look at people’s actual health, at indicators such as obesity, diabetes, and simply the chance that someone will die before his or her next birthday, the U.S. ranks last: young Americans are #17 out of 17 in real health.

Of course, it turns out they're actually last among developed nations in real health outcomes.

The U.S. ranks #1 among 17 affluent, western countries in the percentage of people aged 5 to 34 who rate their health as good. Unfortunately, when doctors look at people’s actual health, at indicators such as obesity, diabetes, and simply the chance that someone will die before his or her next birthday, the U.S. ranks last: young Americans are #17 out of 17 in real health.

I guess the study used the modifier "wealthy" along with developed to explain their choice of reference class. I looked at the list and it didn't seem obviously cherry picked. What countries would you add?

The proper reference class probably depends on what this is being used as a proxy for: the ratio of self-described health to medical quality-of-life metrics is an odd enough figure that I assume it's being used as a proxy for something. If we're looking for degree of overconfidence in health care efficacy, which seems like the most likely candidate, using the first N countries ranked by per-capita health care spending might be the way to go: that gives you a list that's not too dissimilar from the one in the article_per_capita), although some of the detai... (read more)

7TrE13y

Without looking at the data, of course.