Federal Data: U.S. Women Have Highest Rates of Avoidable Deaths

The Commonwealth Fund reported in a news brief on August 15 that new federal data show that the United States has by far the highest rate of maternal deaths of any high-income nation, despite a decline since the COVID-19 pandemic.

Munira Z. Gunja, Relebohile Masitha, and Laurie C. Zephyrin mentioned in the brief that “as of 2022, women in the U.S. had the lowest life expectancy of 80 years compared to women in other high-income countries. As of 2021, women in the U.S. had the highest rate of avoidable deaths (270 per 100,000).”

“While the U.S. spends more on health care than other countries do,” the authors reported, “American women have long had worse access to the health care they need.” U.S. women have a high percentage of being uninsured. “Women in the U.S. have among the highest rates and in some cases the highest rate, of skipping or delaying needed care because of the cost and having medical bill problems,” the authors noted.

The authors drew upon data from the Commonwealth Fund’s 2023 International Health Policy Survey of Australia, Canada, France, Germany, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and the United States; the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention National Vital Statistics System; the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD); and the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation Global Burden of Disease.