PAM 2030 Chapter Notes - Chapter 5: Epidemiological Transition, Dependent And Independent Variables, Life Table

• School: Cornell University
• Department: Policy, Analysis and Management
• Course: PAM 2030
• Professor: Lichter

Document Summary

The variability by age in mortality is reduced or compressed, leading to an increased rectangularization of mortality. This means that most people survive to advanced ages and then die pretty quickly. The major characteristic of high mortality societies is that there was a lot more variability in the ages at which people died than is true today. Until recently, then, increases in longevity were primarily due to environmental changes that improved health levels, especially better nutrition and increasing stan- dards of living, not to better medical care. All of this knowlegde and technology was transferred to the rest of the world at the war"s end. There are two basic ways to accomplish the goal of postponing death to the oldest ages: preventing disease from occurring or from spreading when they do occur curing people of disease when they are sick.