A number of my blog posts and white papers have focused on the sad state of health in the U.S. In a recent Atlantic article, Derek Thompson connected a number of dots that provided an overall picture of slight improvements in outcomes. Drug-related deaths fell 3% from 2022 to 2023 and traffic deaths decreased by 3.2% in the first quarter of 2024 as compared to the same period in 2023. The National Health and Nutrition Examination found that the prevalence of obesity in adults fell from 41.9% to 40.3% and the most recent FBI report indicated a 11.6% decrease in the number of murders as well as declines in the frequency of other violent crimes. While most of these changes are small and it is certainly possible that these improvements prove temporary, the fact that many indicators moved in right direction in a single year is promising. There is no cogent explanation for this good news and Thompson rightly points out that his article is full of “maybes” and “perhaps.” However, we will gladly take it!
