Deaths

    Cards (22)

    • Improved nutrition
      • Accounts for up to 1/2 the reduction in death rates
      • Better nutrition increases resistance to infection, and therefore, survival
    • McKeown (1972) argues that improved nutrition accounts for up to 1/2 the reduction in death rates
    • Improved nutrition
      Women get smaller portions but live longer than males
    • Improved nutrition
      Many died from infectious diseases like the measles
    • Death rate
      Number of deaths per 1,000 of the population per year
    • The death rate has fallen since 1870, despite periods of economic depression and war, and has been declining slightly since 1950
    • Life expectancy
      How long on average a person born in a given year can expect to live
    • Life expectancy has greatly increased since 1900
    • In 1900, males lived to 50 and females lived to 57, while in 2013 it was 90.7 for males and 94 for females
    • One reason for low life expectancy before was because of a high infant mortality rate
    • If greater longevity continues, we'll have radical longevity with more people aged over 100, 1M by year 2300 compared to around 10K now
    • Medical improvements
      • Improved medical knowledge, techniques and organisation helped reduce death rates after 1950
      • Advances include blood transfusions, improved maternity services, and the NHS being set up in 1948
      • In recent times, by-pass surgeries have reduced heart diseased deaths by 1/3
    • The greatest fall in recent decades isn't medical advancement, but simply from a reduction in people smoking
    • Obesity has replaced smoking in the 21st century as the new lifestyle epidemic, with % of all adults being obese in 2012
    • Even though obesity has risen, drug therapies have kept deaths from it low
    • We're moving to an 'American' health culture where lifestyles are unhealthy, but medications keep the lifespan long
    • Class, gender and regional factors
      Even with an overall reduction in death rates and increase in life expectancy, there are still class, gender and regional differences
    • People living in the poorest areas of England die on average 7 years earlier than those in richest areas, while the average difference in disability-free life expectancy is 17 years
    • Women generally live longer than men though the gap has narrowed due to changes in employment and lifestyle (like more women smoking)
    • Those living in the North and Scotland have a lower life expectancy than those in the South, while working-class men in unskilled/routine jobs are 3x as likely to die before 65 compared to men in managerial/professional jobs
    • Public health measures
      • More central/local government with the power to pass/enforce laws led to improvements in public health and quality of the environment
      • This included improved housing, purer drinking water, laws to combat food/drink adulteration, pasteurisation of milk, and improved sewage disposal
      • The Clean Air Act reduced air pollution, like the smog that led to 4,000 deaths in 5 days in 1952
    • Demography
      • Reasons for the fall in the death rate
      • Up to 1970, about three-quarters of the decline was due to a fall in deaths from infectious diseases
      • This decline was largely brought about by changing social factors, including improved nutrition, medical improvements, and public health improvements
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