death rate

• overall death rate trends

  decline

  19 to 8.9 / 1000 1900 to 2012
• reasons for decline in death rates

  improved housing, sanitation and medicine

  medical improvements and health education

  improved working conditions

  higher living standards, nutrition and diet

  public health measures and welfare
• improved hygiene, sanitation and medicine and declining death rate - MCKEOWN 


  improvements in environmental conditions coupled with steady rise in living standards and better diet were more important than medical advancements
• improved hygiene, sanitation and medicine and declining death rate

  advances such as vaccines and development of antibiotics contributed to decline in DR and increase in life expectancy

  more sophisticated medical care means people survive previously fatal illnesses
• medical improvements and health education and declining death rate

  pre 1950 - medical improvements played almost no role

  post 1950s - improved medical knowledge, techniques and organisation reduced death rates

  • introduction of immunisation and antibiotics
  • improved maternal services
  • NHS 1948

  improved educational standards = better informed public demanding better hygiene and public health
• improved working conditions and declining birth rate

  decline in dangerous manual occupations such as mining

  technology taken over more health damaging tasks

  factory machinery often safer than 100 years ago

  higher standards of health / safety, shorter working weeks and more leisure time = less physically demanding
• higher living standards, nutrition and diet and declining birth rate - MCKEOWN

  improved nutrition accounted for help reduction in death rates, especially from TV
• higher living standards, nutrition and diet and declining birth rate - HARPER

  greatest fall in death rate came from reduction in number of people smoking

  ? replaced with obesity epidemic with low deaths due to drug therapies
• higher living standards, nutrition and diet and declining birth rate - HARPER


  we are moving to american health culture where lifestyles are unhealthy but long life span achieved via medication
• evaluation of MCKEOWEN and better nutrition as most important factor in declining death rates

  females lived longer than man despite getting lower share of food

  fails to explain why deaths from infectious diseases rose during improved nutrition
• public health measures and welfare and declining birth rate

  20th century = range of improvements in public health and quality:

  • improvements to housing
  • purer drinking water
  • pasteurisation of milk
  • improved sewage disposal
  • clean air act = reduced air pollution

  NHS provision of free comprehensive healthcare, with better antenatal and postnatal care

  childbirth is safer

  wide range of healthcare benefits available to help maintain standards of living