More Primary Care Physicians - Longer Lives

More primary care physicians - longer lives

People's health is directly related to how accessible primary health care is to them. Scientists have found a decrease in mortality with an increase in the number of doctors at this level.

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People's health is directly related to how accessible primary health care is to them. Scientists have found a decrease in mortality with an increase in the number of doctors at this level.

With an increase in the number of primary care physicians by 10 per 100,000 inhabitants, the life expectancy of people increased by 51.5 days. Scientists made such observations in the USA during 2005-2015.

For comparison, in the framework of the same study, it was shown that with an increase in the number of narrow specialties doctors by 10 per 100,000 population, life expectancy increased "only" by 19.2 days.

“Better primary care was associated with a decrease in population mortality, indicating that a decrease in the number of primary care physicians could have important health implications,” says a study published in JAMA Internal Medicine.

The authors came to their conclusions, making observations in all states. They noted that during the study, there was an overall increase in the population and a decrease in the number of doctors in rural areas, which affected the health of its residents.

“Primary care physicians are the primary point of contact for the majority of the population, and they carry out prevention, screening and early diagnosis,” says Sanjay Basu, an assistant professor at Stanford University.

The analysis of specific causes of death showed that for every additional ten primary care physicians per 100,000 people, mortality from cardiovascular diseases decreases by 0.9%, from cancer - by 1%, and from respiratory diseases - by 1.4%.

People who moved to areas with better primary health care experienced significant increases in life expectancy within a relatively short time.