Archive Report
Archive Report
Menace of Chronic Disease to Nation's Health
Chronic diseases are now the leading threat to the health of the American people. Taken together, they account for three out of every four deaths in the United States, and they probably afflict one out of every six persons in the country. Nearly every family has one or more members who suffer from some chronic ailment. Surgeon General Scheele of the U. S. Public Health Service has said “Chronic disease is this nation's daily disaster.”1
While chronic diseases occur more frequently among persons past middle life, they are by no means confined to the aged.2 Fully one-third of the chronically ill are persons in their most productive years, between 25 and 45. Many of the chronically ill can and ...