United States: 1951 to Present

The United States is the third-largest country in the world in terms of area, and the fourth-largest in terms of population, with an estimated July 2014 population of 318,892,103. It is a technologically advanced country with a modern economy, and is classified by the World Bank as a high-income country, with a per capita gross domestic product (GDP) in 2014 of $54,800 (19th-highest in the world). Health expenditures in the United States in 2013 constituted 17.1 percent of GDP, the highest percentage in the world. The United States is both a major producer of pharmaceutical products and a major consumer of them, and is also a site of much medical research, including research and development devoted to discovering and bringing to market new pharmaceutical products.