Middle-aged English people are healthier than their American counterparts, according to a collaborative study issued today by English and US researchers.
Americans aged between 55 and 64 suffer from diseases such as diabetes, high-blood pressure and lung cancer at rates up to twice those seen among similar aged people in England, reports the study, published on 3 May in the Journal of the American Medical Association.
By analysing a large representative sample of people from each country, researchers from the Institute for Fiscal Studies, UCL (University College London) and RAND3 in the US found that English people were less likely to report suffering from a wide array of diseases. The differences were confirmed when researchers analysed separate studies that collected blood samples from participants to look for biological markers of disease ֠showing that the differences were not just a result of Americans' increased willingness to report illness.
Authors
James Banks
James is Senior Research Fellow and Professor of Economics at Manchester, working on broad issues in the economics of retirement, savings and health.
Zoe Oldfield
Zoe is Head of Data Services. She joined the IFS in 1998 as a researcher and moved into Data Services in 2011.
James Smith
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