demography- deaths rates Flashcards
Death rate
‘The number of deaths per 1000 of the population per year’.
War
The death rate had already begun falling from about 1870 and continued to do so until around 1930.
It rose in the 1930’s & 40’s- the period of the great economic depression, followed by World War Two
reasons for decline: Tranter 1996
There are several reasons why the death rate declined during the 20th century.
Tranter (1996) suggests over 3 quarters of the decline in death rate from about 1850 to 1970 was due to a fall in the number of deaths from infectious diseases such as diptheria, influenza, measles, smallpox etc.
Largely, these affected the young!
By the 1950s
By the 1950’s, so-called ‘diseases of affluence’ (wealth) such as cancer and heart disease had replaced infectious diseases as the main cause of death.
These degenerative diseases affect the middle aged and old more than the young.
smoking and diet
Harper (2012): The greatest fall in the death rates in recent decades has come not from medical improvements, but simply from a reduction in the number of people smoking.
However, in the 21st century, obesity has replaced smoking as the new lifestyle epidemic.
Yet, although obesity has increased dramatically, deaths from obesity have been kept low as a result of drug therapies. Harper suggests that we may be moving to an American health culture where lifestyles are unhealthy but where a long lifespan is achieved by use of costly medication.
