Culture
Cities Get Sick in Different Ways
Manchester fights depression, Cardiff obesity, and Amsterdam respiratory disease. What's up with these differences?
If you paid much attention to the health-care debate in Washington over the past few years, you may recall this zinger: The United States – often reputed by its own politicians to have the best health care system in the world – in fact was ranked just 37th among 191 countries by the World Health Organization, sitting awkwardly between Costa Rica and Slovenia.
We’re used to comparing our health records at the country level like this, looking at how we stack up against other nations on life expectancy or infant mortality or AIDS rates. And somehow it makes sense that these metrics would vary across national boundaries. We've all got different health care systems, different public health policies, even different genes.