Trends and Socioeconomic Gradients in Adult Mortality Around the Developing World PDF Download

Author: Damien de Walque
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 53

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The authors combine data from 84 Demographic and Health Surveys from 46 countries to analyze trends and socioeconomic differences in adult mortality, calculating mortality based on the sibling mortality reports collected from female respondents aged 15-49. The analysis yields four main findings. First, adult mortality is different from child mortality: while under-5 mortality shows a definite improving trend over time, adult mortality does not, especially in Sub-Saharan Africa. The second main finding is the increase in adult mortality in Sub-Saharan African countries. The increase is dramatic among those most affected by the HIV/AIDS pandemic. Mortality rates in the highest HIV-prevalence countries of southern Africa exceed those in countries that experienced episodes of civil war. Third, even in Sub-Saharan countries where HIV-prevalence is not as high, mortality rates appear to be at best stagnating, and even increasing in several cases. Finally, the main socioeconomic dimension along which mortality appears to differ in the aggregate is gender. Adult mortality rates in Sub-Saharan Africa have risen substantially higher for men than for women?especially so in the high HIV-prevalence countries. On the whole, the data do not show large gaps by urban/rural residence or by school attainment.

Author: National Research Council
Publisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 0309050855
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 424

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As the United States and the rest of the world face the unprecedented challenge of aging populations, this volume draws together for the first time state-of-the-art work from the emerging field of the demography of aging. The nine chapters, written by experts from a variety of disciplines, highlight data sources and research approaches, results, and proposed strategies on a topic with major policy implications for labor forces, economic well-being, health care, and the need for social and family supports.

Author: National Academies of Sciences Engineering and Medicine
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780309684736
Category :
Languages : en
Pages :

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Author:
Publisher:
ISBN: 9789187793660
Category : Income
Languages : en
Pages :

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Mortality differentials by socioeconomic status (SES) are among the most pervasive facts of contemporary demography. However, while the mortality gradient by income, class and education is well-established for the period after 1970, evidence regarding the origins of the gradient is still scarce. The aim of this thesis is to explore the development of SES differences in all-cause and cause-specific adult and old age mortality over the last 200 years, exploiting unique longitudinal individual-level data for a regional population in the south of Sweden, as well as full-count decennial?microcensuses for the whole country. It was confirmed throughout all the four studies that the socioeconomic gradient in mortality is a recent phenomenon starting after the second world war. This result was independent from the dimension of socioeconomic status used in the analysis. A similar late emergence of social differences in mortality dating back to not earlier than the 1950s is evident regardless of whether the analysis was based on social class or income. Even when examining more detailed occupations, more prestigious jobs such as architects, engineers, physicians, and lawyers were not associated with lower mortality before the second half of the twentieth century. Analyzing more specific groups of diseases showed that the advantages related to one's higher social class or to one's higher income appeared at approximately the same time and did so regardless of preventability. Interestingly, when looking at mortality from circulatory diseases for men both by social class and income during the nineteenth and first half of the twentieth century a reversed gradient emerged. Moreover, empirical models including both social class and income showed that they are both independently related to mortality and that the income gradient appeared at an earlier stage, around the 1950s, while when looking at social class it emerged a couple of decades later. When the relation between social class and mortality is broken down in more detailed occupations, results showed significant differences in mortality by occupation within the same social class. Eventually by analysing the different role of cohort and period effects on the relation between social class and mortality it emerged that cohort factors may have had a greater contribution to explaining mortality patterns by social class. Several mechanisms were considered as possible explanations for such patters, including early life factors, material resources and lifestyle. Taken together the results point toward the importance of lifestyle factors. Such mechanism is consistent with the reverse gradient in circulatory diseases before the 1950s and the turn-around that happened later. Indeed, higher social classes were more likely to be heavy consumers of alcohol, to smoke tobacco and to have a sedentary life. In more recent years, the opposite is true. Moreover, unhealthy behaviors were more common among men, which is a potential explanation for why the reverse gradient is not present for women. Overall, the studies presented here looking at long-term developments of the SES-mortality relation reveal that the impact of SES on survival chances has not always been the same but it rather depends on which coping mechanisms each SES group exploits to avoid risk factors at each point in time.

Author: National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine
Publisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 0309452961
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 583

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In the United States, some populations suffer from far greater disparities in health than others. Those disparities are caused not only by fundamental differences in health status across segments of the population, but also because of inequities in factors that impact health status, so-called determinants of health. Only part of an individual's health status depends on his or her behavior and choice; community-wide problems like poverty, unemployment, poor education, inadequate housing, poor public transportation, interpersonal violence, and decaying neighborhoods also contribute to health inequities, as well as the historic and ongoing interplay of structures, policies, and norms that shape lives. When these factors are not optimal in a community, it does not mean they are intractable: such inequities can be mitigated by social policies that can shape health in powerful ways. Communities in Action: Pathways to Health Equity seeks to delineate the causes of and the solutions to health inequities in the United States. This report focuses on what communities can do to promote health equity, what actions are needed by the many and varied stakeholders that are part of communities or support them, as well as the root causes and structural barriers that need to be overcome.

Author: National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine
Publisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 0309474108
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 409

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Almost 25 years have passed since the Demography of Aging (1994) was published by the National Research Council. Future Directions for the Demography of Aging is, in many ways, the successor to that original volume. The Division of Behavioral and Social Research at the National Institute on Aging (NIA) asked the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine to produce an authoritative guide to new directions in demography of aging. The papers published in this report were originally presented and discussed at a public workshop held in Washington, D.C., August 17-18, 2017. The workshop discussion made evident that major new advances had been made in the last two decades, but also that new trends and research directions have emerged that call for innovative conceptual, design, and measurement approaches. The report reviews these recent trends and also discusses future directions for research on a range of topics that are central to current research in the demography of aging. Looking back over the past two decades of demography of aging research shows remarkable advances in our understanding of the health and well-being of the older population. Equally exciting is that this report sets the stage for the next two decades of innovative researchâ€"a period of rapid growth in the older American population.

Author: Lisa F. Berkman
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 9780195083316
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 428

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This book shows the important links between social conditions and health and begins to describe the processes through which these health inequalities may be generated. It reviews a range of methodologies that could be used by health researchers in this field and proposes innovative future research directions.

Author: National Research Council
Publisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 0309217105
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 200

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Book Description
During the last 25 years, life expectancy at age 50 in the United States has been rising, but at a slower pace than in many other high-income countries, such as Japan and Australia. This difference is particularly notable given that the United States spends more on health care than any other nation. Concerned about this divergence, the National Institute on Aging asked the National Research Council to examine evidence on its possible causes. According to Explaining Divergent Levels of Longevity in High-Income Countries, the nation's history of heavy smoking is a major reason why lifespans in the United States fall short of those in many other high-income nations. Evidence suggests that current obesity levels play a substantial part as well. The book reports that lack of universal access to health care in the U.S. also has increased mortality and reduced life expectancy, though this is a less significant factor for those over age 65 because of Medicare access. For the main causes of death at older ages-cancer and cardiovascular disease-available indicators do not suggest that the U.S. health care system is failing to prevent deaths that would be averted elsewhere. In fact, cancer detection and survival appear to be better in the U.S. than in most other high-income nations, and survival rates following a heart attack also are favorable. Explaining Divergent Levels of Longevity in High-Income Countries identifies many gaps in research. For instance, while lung cancer deaths are a reliable marker of the damage from smoking, no clear-cut marker exists for obesity, physical inactivity, social integration, or other risks considered in this book. Moreover, evaluation of these risk factors is based on observational studies, which-unlike randomized controlled trials-are subject to many biases.

Author: Institute of Medicine
Publisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 0309133181
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 536

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The anthrax incidents following the 9/11 terrorist attacks put the spotlight on the nation's public health agencies, placing it under an unprecedented scrutiny that added new dimensions to the complex issues considered in this report. The Future of the Public's Health in the 21st Century reaffirms the vision of Healthy People 2010, and outlines a systems approach to assuring the nation's health in practice, research, and policy. This approach focuses on joining the unique resources and perspectives of diverse sectors and entities and challenges these groups to work in a concerted, strategic way to promote and protect the public's health. Focusing on diverse partnerships as the framework for public health, the book discusses: The need for a shift from an individual to a population-based approach in practice, research, policy, and community engagement. The status of the governmental public health infrastructure and what needs to be improved, including its interface with the health care delivery system. The roles nongovernment actors, such as academia, business, local communities and the media can play in creating a healthy nation. Providing an accessible analysis, this book will be important to public health policy-makers and practitioners, business and community leaders, health advocates, educators and journalists.

Author: Harold Alderman
Publisher: World Bank Publications
ISBN: 0821386786
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 208

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"Education is often seen as a fundamental means to improve economic prospects for individuals from low income settings. However, even with increased emphasis on basic education for all, many individuals fail to achieve basic skills to succeed in life. The book presents evidence that one core reason is that by the time a child is old enough to attend school, there is already a wide disparity in cognitive skills and in emotional and behavioral development among children from households of different socioeconomic backgrounds. Low levels of cognitive development in early childhood strongly correlate with low socio-economic status (as measured by wealth and parental education) as well as malnutrition. These disadvantages are often exacerbated by economic crises. Fortunately, however, as documented in this volume, there are programs that have proven effective in promoting a child's development through caregiver-child interaction and stimulation, and with well designed preschool programs. While preschool programs currently cover a modest share of low income children, expansion of such services to at risk populations is a cost-effective means of improving overall educational achievement. Thus, focused preschool programs can serve as a key investment in a strategy to reduce the transmission of poverty from poor parents to their children."