Unit 2 - Chapter 4 of Text Flashcards
What are the two types of longevity?
1) Average longevity
2) Maximum longevity
What is average longevity?
- Commonly called average life expectancy and refers to the age at which half of the individuals who are born in a particular year will have died.
- Is affected by genetics and environmental factors
What are increases in longevity due to?
1) Decline in infant mortality
2) Eliminating diseases such as smallpox, polie
3) Decline in number of women who die in childbirth
4) Medical technology
What is maximum longevity?
- The oldest age to which any individual of a species lives.
- Even if we were able to eliminate all diseases, most researchers estimate the limit to be somewhere around 120 years because key body parts, such as the cardiovascular system have limits on how long they’ll last
What factors influence our longevity?
1) Genetics
2) Environmental
3) Ethnicity
4) Gender factors
Interesting facts on longevity
- If your mother lives to at least age 80, roughly 4 years are added to your average longevity
- Children of parents who lived beyond 80 survived about 20 years longer than children whose parents had both died before they were 60
What is the Human Genome Project (2003)?
An international scientific research project with the goal of determining the sequence of chemical base pairs which make up human DNA, and of identifying and mapping all of the genes of the human genome from both a physical and functional standpoint
What do researchers with the Human Genome Project hope to do with their work?
1) Improve the way medicines work
2) Implant “correcting” genes into people in the hopes that the good genes will reproduce and eventually wipe out the defective genes
What sorts of environmental factors affect the life span?
1) Disease - cardiovascular, Alzheimer’s, smoking, lack of exercise
2) Toxins
3) Lifestyles
4) Social class
Generally, how are environmental factors involved in the life span?
1) Air and water pollution
2) Toxins in fish
3) Bacteria and cancer-causing agents in drinking water
4) Airborne pollutants
What is the negative impact of social class on life span?
1) Reduced access to goods and services, especially medical care
2) Ethnic groups that experience poverty
3) Little or no health insurance
4) Air pollution in crowded cities and unable to afford to move
5) Lead poisoning from old lead pipes
6) No money for a more healthful lifestyle
How do we differentiate between active life expectancy and dependent life expectancy?
- Active life expectancy is living to a healthy old age
- Dependent life expectancy is simply living a long time
- One’s active life expectancy ends at the point when one loses independence or must rely on others for most activities of daily living (cooking, bathing, etc.) The rest of one’s life constitute living in a dependent state
Give an example of how a change in circumstances can significantly alter expected life span
Acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) has had a devastating effect on life expectancy in Africa where some countries (Botswana, Namibia, South Africa, and Zimbabwe) average longevity may be reduced by as much as 30 years
What are some ethnic differences in average longevity?
- Ethnic groups do not have the same average longevity at birth
- African Americans’ average longevity at birth is roughly 6.5 years lower for men and about 5 years lower for women than it is for European Americans
- By age 85, African Americans tend to outlife European Americans
- Latinos have higher average life expectancies than European Americans at all ages despite having less access to health care
What are the gender differences in average longevity?
- Women’s average longevity is about 5 years more than men at birth, narrowing to 1 year by age 85
- This is typical of most industrialized countries, but not developing countries
Why did the female advantage in average longevity in the US become apparent only in the early 20th century?
- Fewer women died in childbirth
- Death in childbirth explains the lack of a female advantage in developing countries
- Access to better health care, work and educational opportunities
Are men or women more likely to die from infection or disease?
- Men’s rates of dying from the top 15 causes of death are significantly higher than women’s at nearly every age
- Men are also more susceptible to infectious disease
- Great susceptibility in men of contracting certain fatal disease and genetics
What advantages may women have over men?
- Women have two X chromosomes whereas men have just one
- Men have a higher metabolic rate whereas women have ahigher brain-to-body weight ration
- Women have lower testosterone levels
How do men and women compare with respect to cognitive testing?
- Older men who survive beyond age 90 are the hardies segment of their birth cohort in terms of performance on cognitive tests
- Between ages 65 and 89, women score higher, but beyond 90, men do much better
How does the World Health Organization (WHO) define “health”?
A state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being, and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity
How do we define “illness”?
The presence of a physical or mental disease or impairment
What are the 4 reasons why self-report on one’s health status is accurate?
1) Self-rated health captures more aspects of health than other measures
2) Poor self-related health reflects respondents’ belief that they are on a downward trajectory
3) People’s self-ratings affect their health outcomes
4) Self-rated health may actually represent an assessment of people’s internal and external resources that are available to support health
What does research show about self-reporting on health?
- Self-ratings of health are very predictive of future health outcomes
- Self-ratings also tend to be fairly stable over time
Who self-reports better health … men or women?
- Men rated their health worse than women did
- Among the oldest-old, self-rated health is a powerful predictor of mortality across cultures even after socio-economic status and health conditions had been accounted for