The United States has the potential to substantially improve its population health in the future. No comparable index to this study compares the United States to other nations, but individual measures do show what other countries have already achieved and thus indicate the potential for the United States. For example, the infant mortality rates in several countries are substantially less than the rate in the United States, including Hong Kong (3.1 deaths per 1,000 live births), Japan (3.4 deaths), Sweden (3.4 deaths), France (4.3 deaths), Germany (4.5 deaths), Spain (4.5 deaths), Czech Republic (4.6 deaths), Italy (5.1 deaths), Canada (5.3 deaths), Australia (5.7 deaths), the United Kingdom (5.8 deaths) and Cuba (6.4 deaths) . The goal for the United States, as established by Healthy People 2010, is 4.5 deaths per 1,000 live births, an aggressive target that requires substantial improvement from current rates in the next six years.¹

Another, broader measure used to compare health in countries is Healthy Life Expectancy. This is the basic indicator of population health used by the World Health Organization and published each year in the World Health Report. This indicator measures the equivalent number of years in full health that a newborn child can expect to live based on the current death rates and on the current rates of illness and disability. Improvement in healthy life expectancy is also the first goal of Healthy People 2010 for the United States. Today, 28 countries have healthy life expectancies that exceed the United States, including the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, France, Germany and Japan. The highest, Japan, exceeds the United States by more than five years, meaning that the average newborn child in Japan can expect to have more than five additional years in which to enjoy a healthy, active life. ²