Are We As Safe As We Think?

Compared with other wealthy democracies, living in the United States generally entails higher risks of premature death, injury, and economic precarity. Those risks are uneven across places and populations, but the national averages are stubbornly worse than peer nations. A mix of exceptional policy choices and a powerful narrative of American exceptionalism helps many citizens believe the U.S. is the safest, “best” place to live ... despite data to the contrary.

How the U.S. compares on core safety metrics

- Violent death: The U.S. homicide rate is several times higher than most Western European countries, Japan, or South Korea. Firearms are the dominant driver; the U.S. has far more guns per capita than any peer nation and far higher firearm mortality (tens of thousands annually, with roughly half suicides).

- Traffic safety: Americans are several times more likely to die in motor vehicle crashes than residents of countries like the UK, Norway, or the Netherlands. Car-dependent urban design, higher speed limits, and weaker enforcement contribute.

- Life expectancy: U.S. life expectancy lags many OECD peers by 5–7 years. After a brief pandemic rebound, it still trails countries that invested more in primary care and social protection.

- Maternal and infant outcomes: Maternal mortality in the U.S. is multiple times higher than in most peer democracies; infant mortality is also markedly higher. Racial disparities are stark, with Black mothers facing significantly higher risks.

- Overdose and mental health: Drug overdose deaths exceed 100,000 per year, driven by synthetic opioids. Access to mental health care remains fragmented and expensive.

- Medical harm and financial risk: The U.S. is the only wealthy democracy without universal health coverage. Many delay care due to cost, leading to worse outcomes from otherwise manageable conditions. Medical debt is common and is a leading contributor to personal financial crises.

- Workplace safety: Fatality rates in certain sectors (construction, agriculture, transportation) are higher than comparable countries with stronger labor protections and enforcement.

- Criminal justice and policing: The U.S. has the highest incarceration rate among developed nations. Police use of lethal force kills roughly a thousand people annually, a rate higher than peer countries.

Root causes: choices, not fate

- Firearms policy: High civilian gun availability correlates with higher rates of homicide and suicide by firearm. Peer countries that tightened access (e.g., after mass shootings) saw sustained reductions in gun deaths.

- Built environment: Car-centric planning raises crash risk, pedestrian fatalities, and pollution exposure. Countries prioritizing transit, lower speeds, and safer street design report far fewer traffic deaths.

- Health system design: Fragmented insurance coverage, high out-of-pocket costs, and uneven primary care access yield preventable mortality. Universal systems abroad emphasize early intervention and continuity of care.

- Inequality and social safety nets: The U.S. has higher income and wealth inequality. Countries with stronger housing policy, wage floors, paid leave, and unemployment supports reduce the downstream risks associated with poverty.

- Regulation and enforcement: Stricter standards in food, drug pricing, chemicals, and workplace safety in some peers contribute to fewer harms.

- Social cohesion: Trust, inclusion, and lower segregation correlate with reduced violence and better health; the U.S. remains highly segregated by income and race in many metros.

Why so many Americans still believe the U.S. is the safest and “best”

- Exceptionalism as identity: Civic rituals, education standards emphasizing national triumphs, and bipartisan rhetoric about being “the greatest nation” create a default belief that America leads on most things.

- Selective metrics: The U.S. often highlights total GDP, military strength, top university rankings, Nobel Prizes, and breakthrough innovations ... areas of genuine leadership ... while relative per-capita outcomes (health, safety, poverty) get less emphasis.

- Media ecosystem: Consolidated media markets, polarized cable news, and social algorithms reward spectacle over comparative context. Many outlets cover crime episodically but rarely benchmark America against peers on systemic metrics.

- Think tanks and PR: Interest-funded organizations shape narratives about regulation, guns, healthcare, and crime, often framing international comparisons as “not applicable” due to U.S. uniqueness.

- Entertainment and military branding: Hollywood, sports, and defense-linked imagery normalize the idea of America as both heroic and under siege, reinforcing “safe because strong” and “dangerous because enemies” tropes, not policy-driven risks.

- Geographic bubbles: Many Americans live in relatively safe suburbs or prosperous regions and extrapolate their experience nationwide. Others experience chronic insecurity but may attribute it to individual failings rather than policy design.

- News deserts and civic literacy: Shrinking local journalism and limited civics or data literacy leave citizens with fewer tools to evaluate official claims or compare outcomes internationally.

Counterpoints worth acknowledging

- Variation is enormous: Some U.S. cities and towns have safety metrics rivaling or beating European peers, while others face severe violence, overdose, and traffic risks. National averages hide local strengths and weaknesses.

- Real strengths: The U.S. offers academic, entrepreneurial, and cultural opportunities that many find unmatched. It protects speech and association robustly and attracts global talent. For some individuals, those benefits outweigh risks.

- Recent improvements: Homicide and some crime indicators have fallen in many places since pandemic-era spikes. Some states and cities are adopting Vision Zero street designs, gun-safety measures, and expanded Medicaid.

How propaganda sustains the gap between perception and reality

- Framing: “Crime” is framed as about policing, not social determinants. “Health” is framed as personal choice, not system design. “Freedom” is framed as deregulation, not the freedom from preventable harm that regulation can deliver.

- False equivalence: Debates pit anecdotes against data. A European terror incident may be amplified to dwarf the routine toll of U.S. traffic or gun deaths.

- Scope neglect: Tens of thousands of preventable deaths annually become background noise, while rare but dramatic events dominate attention.

- Comparative blinders: International case studies are dismissed as incompatible due to size, diversity, or constitutional differences ... useful considerations, but overused to avoid learning.

What would make the U.S. safer ... proven levers from peers

- Gun injury prevention: Universal background checks, safe storage laws, licensing, red-flag laws, limits on high-risk weapons, and community violence interruption programs.

- Health coverage and access: Universal primary care access, mental health integration, addiction treatment on demand, price controls for essentials like insulin.

- Safer streets: Lower speed limits, protected bike lanes, traffic calming, better vehicle safety standards and pedestrian-first urban design.

- Social protection: Paid family leave, child allowances, housing vouchers, eviction prevention, and strong wage floors to reduce stressors linked to violence and ill health.

- Environmental and workplace safety: Stronger enforcement and modernized standards reduce injuries, chronic disease, and disaster harms.

- Data transparency: National dashboards and independent audits that benchmark U.S. outcomes against OECD leaders to steer policy.

How to sanity-check the narrative yourself

- Track a few neutral indicators over time: homicide rate, traffic deaths per 100,000, life expectancy, infant and maternal mortality, overdose deaths, incarceration rate.

- Compare them to peers using sources like OECD, WHO, UNODC, and U.S. CDC. Look at rates, not totals.

- Ask: When politicians claim “best” or “safest,” on what metric? Over what period? Compared to whom?

Bottom line

It’s not that the United States is uniformly unsafe. It’s that, relative to countries with similar resources, Americans face higher odds of preventable death and injury, and greater financial risk from sickness, accidents, or childbirth. Those are the results of policy choices ... about guns, streets, healthcare, labor, and the social safety net ... not destiny. And a powerful story about American greatness, amplified by media and interests, keeps many people from seeing that their risks are higher than they need to be. The good news is that other democracies have shown how to lower those risks. The question is whether Americans can look past the myth long enough to borrow what works.

Julia O’Hara 2025

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