490 Week 3

What can we learn from the Romans about health care?

A few weeks ago in class, Professor M told us that the life expectancy and infant mortality rate in Italy are better than America's. This tells me they must be doing something right. The first thing that comes to mind when I think of Romans and their good health is the fact that they walk everywhere. Rome is like any other major city in the fact that most of its residents have no use for cars. They rely on the Metro, buses and there own legs to get them to places. When you live and work in the city, having a car doesn't make much sense. Not only are the Romans walking everywhere, the city itself is full of hills, making their walks much more demanding than other places.

Another positive aspect of Roman health care (and Italians in general for that matter) is the quality of their food. They very rarely use preservatives, making their food much fresher than ours in the U.S. All of the food prepared here is used fresh daily.

While they may live longer, there are still things that Romans could work on to improve their health. First thing is quitting smoking. Many Romans still smoke, and it is a well known fact that smoking is unhealthy for you. Just the other day walking through Termini (The main train/metro station in Rome) I saw 3 or 4 kids no older than 12 smoking cigarettes in the middle of a train station. They could make an effort to enforce the law and make the cigarettes harder for young kids to get.

On a side note, the lack of driving Romans and Italians seem to do may be directly related to their longer life expectancy. The roads in Italy and Rome are fairly compact and difficult to navigate. The apparent disregard for the speed limit does not help their odds. Just something to think about.