Deaths

Question 1

What is the Death Rate?

Answer 1

The number of deaths per 1000 of the population per year

Question 2

Movement of the Death Rate

Answer 2

•Rose from 1930-50 due to the economic depression and the World Wars
•Tanter (1996): over 3/4 of the decline in the death rate (1850-1970) was due to the fall of infectious diseases

Question 3

Reasons for the decline in the Death Rate: Improved Medical Knowledge

Answer 3

•Improved medication
-antibiotics
-blood transfusions
-bypass surgery
These advances have reduced deaths from heart diseases by 1/3

Question 4

Reasons for the decline in the Death Rate: Consciousness of Health

Answer 4

•More people are health conscious which makes them take care of their health and quit unhealthy habits such as smoking
:( Harper: people still engage in unhealthy behaviour, even though people quit smoking and the smoking epidemic died down, it was replaced with an obesity epidemic

Question 5

Reasons for the decline in the Death Rate: Public Health Measures

Answer 5

•Improvements in housing
•Cleaner air acts
•Purer drinking water
•Laws to combat the “adulteration” of food and drinks

Question 6

Reasons for the decline in the Death Rate: Improved Nutrition

Answer 6

•McKeown (1972): improved nutrition accounts for half the reduction of deaths
•Has improved resistance to infectious diseases
:( Some infectious diseases such as measles started to become more prominent during the increase of improved nutrition

Question 7

Other causes for the decline

Answer 7

•Decline in dangerous manual jobs: less people die from workplace accidents
•Higher incomes: have the capability of buying better supplements to support health

Question 8

Death Rate according to Social Demographic: Improved Nutrition

Answer 8

•W/C families may not have the financial capability of buying the most healthy foods and therefore cope with cheap foods or food from food banks -> this leads them to have lower immunity

Question 9

Death Rate according to Social Demographic: Medical Improvements

Answer 9

•Covid 19
•No clear cure for mental illnesses which is the leading killer of young men in contemporary society

Question 10

Death Rate according to Social Demographic: Consciousness of Health

Answer 10

•Anti-Vaccination people being wary of the effects
-> moral panic that vaccinations caused autism in children

Question 11

Death Rate according to Social Demographic: Public Health Measures

Answer 11

•People do not want to follow societal rules due to naïveté or lack of knowledge
e.g. wearing masks and social distancing during the COVID 19 pandemic