Death rate and life expectancy

• Death Rates


  The number of deaths per year per 1000
• Since the 1950's, death rates have gone down
• Reasons why Death Rate has gone down

  • Improved Nutrition
  • Medical/Healthcare Improvements
  • Smoking and Diet
  • Public health measures
  • Other social changes
• Improved Nutrition


  • Accounted for up to half the reduction in death rates
  • Better nutrition helped battle infections and diseases
  • Those that have high incomes allows for a healthier lifestyle
• Medical/Healthcare Improvements


  Improved medical knowledge helped improve death rates by discovering antibiotics, immunisation and blood transfusions
• Smoking and Diet


  • The greatest fall in death rates has come from people reducing smoking
  • The government has also helped limit smoking by advertising the risks and problems that can arise from smoking, therefore putting people off
• Public health measures


  • The government took incentives to lead to a better quality of the environment
  • This included improving housing, making water more purified and put laws in to reduce the adulterations in food and drinks
• Other social changes


  • A rise in income allows for a healthier lifestyle
  • The reduction of coal mining jobs allowed work to become less dangerous
  • Greater public knowledge of illnesses/diseases
  • Lifestyle changes
• Life Expectancy


  Refers to how long on average a person will live for
• Reasons for low life expectancy

  • Low infant mortality rate
  • Class, gender and regional differences
• Low infant mortality rate


  • Many infants did not survive beyond the early years of life
  • A new born baby today has a better chance of surviving to its 65th birthday than a baby had surviving its 1st birthday in the 1900's
  • Harper says that society will soon achieve 'radical longevity' with more centenarians
• Class, gender and regional differences

  • Women generally live longer than men
  • However, this may change due to more women smoking
  • North and Scotland have a lower life expectancy than in the south
  • Working class men unskilled work are three times more likely to die before they are 65
  • Walker (2011) Says that those living in the poorer parts of england are likely to die 7 yerars more earlier than those in the richer areas