Pursuit: How Death by Numbers Promotes Global Health

By Andrew Trounson

In rural Myanmar, the local midwife is at your side at the start and end of your life.

Not only is she responsible for delivering babies and registering them, she is also responsible for registering deaths and cause of death. And it’s all done the old-fashioned way, using scribbled notes that are sent back to the bureaucrats on bicycles or by mail.

Common Dreams: Global Study Shows Americans Dying from Preventable Causes at Shocking Rates

By Nika Knight

Americans are dying at a shockingly high rate from preventable causes, found a first-of-its-kind global health study published late Thursday.

The new research demonstrates that despite the fact that the U.S. has the largest economy in the world, healthcare for many of its residents is woefully inadequate. The U.S. was tied with Estonia and Montenegro, far below other wealthy nations such as Norway, Canada, and Australia, in the study's ranking of 195 countries.

Science Daily: Cardiovascular Disease Causes One-third of Deaths Worldwide

Cardiovascular diseases (CVD) - including heart diseases and stroke - account for one-third of deaths throughout the world, posing an alarming threat to global health, according to a new study. 

Countries with the greatest number of cardiovascular deaths, after accounting for population size, are found throughout Eastern Europe, Central Asia, the Middle East, South America, sub-Saharan Africa, and Oceania, researchers said. 

...

Read the full article

Alaska Dispatch News: Alaska Sees the Most Dramatic Increases in Life Expectancy in the Nation, New Study Says

By Michelle Theriault Boots

Over the past 35 years, life expectancy increased more in some remote regions of Alaska than almost anywhere else in the United States, according to detailed new research published this week in the journal JAMA Internal Medicine.

The numbers are striking: In 1980, the average life expectancy of a person born in the North Slope Borough was just 65, on par with places like Sudan and Iraq today.

Fierce Healthcare: Disparate Global Health Spending on the Horizon, Study says

by Paige Minemyer

Global health spending is projected to increase significantly over the next 20 years, but spending rates will likely vary widely between countries, even those of similar size and gross domestic product, a new study has found. Researchers at the University of Washington mapped health spending trends around the world and found huge variation in how much different countries would likely spend, according to data published in The Lancet.

...

The Guardian: Smoking Causes One in Ten Deaths Globally, Major New Study Reveals

By Sarah Boseley 

One in ten deaths around the world is caused by smoking, according to a major new study that shows the tobacco epidemic is far from over and that the threat to lives is spreading across the globe.

...

Emmanuela Gakidou, MSc, PhD, Professor of Global Health at UW and Director of Education and Training at the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) was a senior author. 

Pages