Life Expectancy in Israel

With all of the negative attention Israel has been receiving lately, there happens to be some good news to share.  Israel is now proud to announce that there are major gains in the raising of its peoples life expectancy.  Over the last 30 years, life expectancy of Jewish Israelis has increased considerably and ranks above the average of countries that are included in the Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD).  Even Israeli Arabs, who tended to always be a handful of years behind due to cultural, social and educational reasons now live slightly longer than the average American.  Some credit can be given to the national healthcare system and other medical improvements for improving outcomes of Israeli lives.

Even though there is a positive increase in life expectancy, the difference in health outcomes among the several socioeconomic groups, mainly between the Jewish and Arab Israelis is still substantial.  It is just one of many challenges that the system is attempting to improve.  Since 1980, Israel has far outpaced those of other countries in the OECD and the USA (In 1980, however, all 3 were identical with a life expectancy of 74 years).  While the USA's life expectancy has only increased its average by 4 years and the other OECD countries by 6 years, Israel has increased a spectacular 7 years.  In 2005, a country and country comparison proved that Israeli Jews and Arabs are shown to live longer than people of any other country in the Middle East.  That same study also suggests that Israeli Jews actually live longer than the residents of all but four countries in the world.

Though life expectancy is important in the sense that it reflects information about health outcomes of entire life times, infant mortality rates are just as important because it focuses on the survival of infants during their first year of life.  In 1960, Israeli Arabs had a double mortality rate compared to that of Israeli Jews, Americans, and other OECD countries.  Today, Israeli Jew mortality rates are greater than the USA and are slightly above the rest of the OECD.  The remarkable thing is that Israeli Arabs showed the greatest decline and had the same mortality rate of the USA by 2005. Israel still hopes to continue its good fortune of life expectancy for as long as possible.

I find the reliability of this article strong.  The author, Judy Siegel-Itzkovish, got her research from the Jerusalem’s Taub Center for Social Policy Studies in Israel in a comparative study done by Professor Dov Chernichovsky, a leading health economist at the center and Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in Beersheba (she states it in the main article).  Not once does the author go off on a tangent or become biased in anyway.  This article is purely facts in which she got her research directly from the source.  However, not only was her research solid, she is part of "Israel's best-selling English daily and most read English Website", The Jerusalem Post.  She does a good job in picking out the most important details from the study.  Her point of view is quote obvious; she wants the world to know that the Israeli health care system is improving and that they plan on continuing to improve upon these statistics in the years to come.  Overall, I found this article to be quite surprising and can honestly say I have learned a great deal from it.