Been with hospital since 2002: Jacque Shadle has been named chief executive officer of Baton Rouge Rehabilitation Hospital. She has been with the rehab hospital since 2002, serving as director of clinical services. The hospital is affiliated with General Health System and Baton Rouge Orthopedic Clinic.
Root of the problem: The U.S. spends more on health care than any other nation yet has worse life expectancy than many, and a new report blames smoking and obesity. That may sound surprising, considering that public smoking is being stamped out here while it’s common in parts of Europe. And obesity is a growing problem around the world. But the U.S. led those unhealthy trends, lighting up and fattening up a few decades ahead of other high-income countries. The long-term consequence is that life expectancy is a few years shorter here than in parts of Europe and Japan, the National Research Council reported today. In the U.S., life expectancy at birth was 80.8 years for women and 75.6 years for men in 2007. In France, life expectancy for women was 84.4 years and 77.4 for men. And in Japan, it was nearly 86 years for women and 79.2 for men. But thanks to the decline in smoking over the last 20 years, the life expectancy of U.S. men is expected to rapidly improve in coming decades. That improvement will be a little slower for U.S. women, whose peak smoking rates occurred several years after men’s. While smoking is the key factor, the report also says obesity may account for a fifth to a third of the U.S. shortfall in life expectancy.
