Data on life expectancy show many countries clustered in high morta...(ow that both progress toward improved li...)

Date:10/10/2007

ow, that both progress toward improved life expectancy but lack a continuum of change between them. An examination of life expectancy in the early 1960s revealed one group of countries clustered around a life expectancy of 40 years and a second group clustered around a life expectancy of 65 years. By the first half of this decade, the mode of each cluster had moved up by about 10 years. ( Mode is the value occurring most frequently in a series of observations or statistical data.) The authors reject the idea that these changes reflect a simple convergence process, that instead, the data suggest continuous advances within the cluster but that low life expectancy countries seem mired in a mortality "trap." A few countries from time to time seem to escape the trap by rapidly reaching a certain threshold and then leap the gap to the high life expectancy cluster. These observations hold even when excluding the effect of AIDS mortality on countries. The authors suggest consideration of a 'big push' (or transformational) theory of health aid that focuses on helping those countries approaching the low-mortality threshold to bounce into the low mortality cluster rather than providing incremental funding to a larger set of countries.

"With limited resources, the largest health gains may be achieved by focusing on countries near the threshold, where small changes in health status can have large effects on those countries' chances of escaping the mortality trap," they write.

A second paper, by Burton H. Singer of the Office of Population Research at Princeton University and Marcia Caldas de Castro, assistant professor of demography in the Department of Population and International Health at HSPH, argues that sustainable control of schistosomiasis and other water-borne diseases in the tropics will require bridging organizations and communities to ensure human and animal disease surveillance, monitoring the impact of new economic development projects and linki
'/>"/>

Contact: Robin Herman rherman@hsph.harvard.edu 617-432-4752 Harvard School of Public Health Source:Eurekalert

0 GOOD

Page: 1 2 3
Related biology news :

1. US life expectancy about to decline, researchers say
2. Report that delayed motherhood decreases life expectancy of mouse offspring
3. Combined treatment extends life expectancy for lung cancer patients
4. Light wine intake is associated with longer life expectancy in men
5. Emergence of cancer as major cause of childhood death in developing countries is not being adequately addressed
6. Free access to a digital library for developing countries
7. Low-cost drug gaining favor for use in HIV-infected children in poor countries
8. Immunization rates hit record high in poor countries
9. 30+ AIDS vaccine clinical trials in 24 countries, research occurring on every continent
10. HIV mortality in India drops with introduction of generic antiretroviral therapy
11. Oil spills and climate change double the mortality rate of British seabirds