Study Shows American Youth 10-24 Have Highest Mortality Rate Of Any High-Income Country Worldwide

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Study Shows American Youth 10-24 Have Highest Mortality Rate Of Any High-Income Country Worldwide

A new study of adolescent health around the globe found the United States had the highest mortality rate for people ages 10-to-24 of any high-income country in the world.

The American kids were also No. 1 in kush-smoking, moving toward the top spot in boozing — all while still hitting the gym harder than their contemporaries in other wealthy nations.

Death on the wrong end of a gun or any other violent method is up to 20 times more likely in the U.S. than the other 27 wealthy nations, according to findings reported in The Lancet, a British medical journal.

Traffic accidents combined with the violent deaths boosted the U.S. to its undesired position atop the mortality charts, The Lancet wrote in a series of articles this week.

For binge-drinking among youths, Ireland and Austria posted the highest rates among high-income countries — although the U.S. was about ready to buy the next round.

“The drinking patterns of USA adolescents are catching up with those in other (high-income countries),” The Lancet reported. One reason the American numbers are disturbing: Most of the domestic binge drinkers are too young to drink legally.

While the U.S. drinking age is 21, the number is as low as 16 in other nations. Binge drinking was defined as five drinks or more during a single day, and roughly one in five adolescents reported at least one binge a week in the top-ranked nations.

At age 15, the country with the most young binge drinkers was the Ukraine; the country with the least was Norway.

The Lancet also found that both U.S. boys and girls were tops when it came to smoking maryjane, trailed by Canada, Spain and France.

Despite the grim numbers regarding death, dope and drink, there was good news in the piece titled “Health of the World’s Adolescents.”

The numbers indicated that U.S. kids ages 13-15 exercised more than their global counterparts in high-income countries. The boys were No. 1 and the girls No. 2 in the rankings.

Yet more than one-third of American boys were categorized as obese, leading The Lancet to describe the problem as an “epidemic.”

The U.S. was nowhere near the top in adolescent suicide rates among well-off countries, where Finland and Ireland were tops.