---
type: source
title: "OECD Health at a Glance 2025: US Preventable and Treatable Mortality vs. OECD Average"
author: "OECD"
url: https://www.oecd.org/en/publications/2025/11/health-at-a-glance-2025_a894f72e/full-report/avoidable-mortality-preventable-and-treatable_e2e21c0b.html
date: 2025-11-01
domain: health
secondary_domains: []
format: report
status: processed
processed_by: vida
processed_date: 2026-04-24
priority: medium
tags: [OECD, preventable-mortality, treatable-mortality, US-health-outcomes, international-comparison, social-determinants, Belief-2, epidemiology, population-health]
extraction_model: "anthropic/claude-sonnet-4.5"
---

## Content

From OECD Health at a Glance 2025, the avoidable mortality chapter (preventable and treatable):

**Preventable mortality (deaths from conditions primarily preventable through public health and behavioral interventions):**
- United States: **217 per 100,000 population**
- OECD average: **145 per 100,000 population**
- US excess: **50% worse than OECD average**

**Treatable mortality (deaths from conditions where effective clinical treatment exists):**
- United States: **95 per 100,000 population**
- OECD average: **77 per 100,000 population**
- US excess: **23% worse than OECD average**

**Life expectancy:**
- United States: 78.4 years
- OECD average: 2.7 years higher than US (approximately 81.1 years)

**Healthcare spending context:**
- US per capita spending: ~$14,885 (2.5x OECD average ~$5,967)
- US GDP share: 17.2% vs. OECD average 9.3%

**The key analytical split:**
- US is 50% worse on preventable mortality (behavioral/environmental conditions)
- US is only 23% worse on treatable mortality (clinical intervention conditions)
- The US underperforms much more on conditions where non-clinical factors dominate than on conditions where clinical intervention is decisive
- Note: The US is actually BETTER than OECD on acute AMI and stroke 30-day mortality — demonstrating that clinical care is internationally competitive; it is the non-clinical determinants that drive the gap

## Agent Notes

**Why this matters:** This is the single most powerful international evidence for Belief 2. The preventable/treatable split is the evidence that clinical spending cannot compensate for behavioral/environmental failures. The US spends 2.5x the OECD average and gets near-parity on clinical outcomes (acute AMI, stroke) but catastrophic underperformance on preventable mortality. This is not a clinical failure — it's a behavioral/social determinants failure.

**What surprised me:** The treatable mortality gap (23% worse) suggests the US DOES have genuine clinical care shortcomings beyond just behavioral/social factors — but these are secondary to the preventable mortality gap (50% worse). The US is not purely failing on prevention while excelling at treatment; it's failing more severely on prevention.

**Correction from prior session note:** Session 26's musing cited "4.3 years below peer-country average" — that figure appears to reflect comparison to a subset of peer countries (Japan, Switzerland, etc.) rather than the full OECD average. The OECD 2025 figure is 2.7 years below OECD average. Both are directionally consistent; use the 2.7 figure as the primary citation.

**KB connections:**
- Direct evidence for Belief 2 ("80-90% of health outcomes determined by non-clinical factors")
- Enriches existing claims about social determinants and epidemiological transition
- Connects to the "deaths of despair" claim in the KB — preventable mortality includes addiction deaths
- The US treatable mortality data (95 vs. 77) should also be in the KB — it's relevant to understanding why value-based care transition matters even within the clinical tier

**Extraction hints:**
- ENRICH existing claims: "medical care explains only 10-20% of health outcomes" — add the OECD preventable/treatable split as international evidence
- CLAIM: "The US underperforms OECD peers 50% on preventable mortality but only 23% on treatable mortality, confirming that the primary US health failure is non-clinical, not clinical"
- This claim is directly arguable and has clean international evidence

**Context:** OECD Health at a Glance is the authoritative annual comparative health systems report, widely cited by health economists, policymakers, and researchers.

## Curator Notes (structured handoff for extractor)
PRIMARY CONNECTION: Medical care explains only 10-20% of health outcomes claim — international evidence layer
WHY ARCHIVED: This is the OECD 2025 confirmed data for the preventable/treatable mortality split. Session 26 referenced this but cited a slightly different figure. This archive has the confirmed OECD numbers.
EXTRACTION HINT: Use to enrich the existing 10-20% clinical care claim with international comparison data. The claim should note: US spends 2.5x OECD average; clinical outcomes near OECD-parity (acute care); preventable mortality 50% worse. The split is the evidence for clinical vs. non-clinical primacy.
