Families and Households: 2.2.2 Death rate

Question 1

Death rate statistic in the UK (1990-2012)

Answer 1

1990: 19
2012: 8.9

Question 2

State the reasons for the decline in the death rate

Answer 2

• Decline in the deaths from infectious diseases
• Improved nutrition
• Medical improvements
• Smoking and diet
• Public health measures and environmental improvements

Question 3

Reasons for the decline in the death rate: decline in deaths from infectious diseases

Answer 3

• 1850s-1900s: decline, most common in the young
• Tranter: 1950s: diseases of affluence has replaced infectious diseases as the main cause of death
• Population began to develop natural resistance

Question 4

Reasons for the decline in the death rate: improved nutrition

Answer 4

• McKeown: accounted for half of the reduction in death rates esp, reducing deaths from tuberculosis
• Better nutrition = increased resistance to infection and increased survival chances
  EVALUATION: Doesn’t explain why women live longer if they have a smaller share of family food
• Fails to explain how some diseases rose at a time of improving nutrition e.g. measles

Question 5

Reasons for the decline in the death rate: medical improvements

Answer 5

• Improved medical knowledge, techniques and organisations helped to reduce death rates
• Advance included antibiotics, blood transfusions, improved maternity services
• By pass surgery has reduced deaths from heart disease by 1/3

Question 6

Reasons for the decline in the death rate: smoking and diet

Answer 6

• Harper: death rates decreased due to less smokers
• Obesity has replaced smoking (2012: 1/4 of adults were obese) but has kept low due to drug therapies
  We’ve moved to an American health culture where lifestyles are unhealthy but a long lifespan is achieved due to costly medication

Question 7

Reasons for the decline in the death rate: public health measures and environmental improvements

Answer 7

• Central and local governments passed laws that led to an improvement in public health and quality of the environment
• Includes improvements in housing, purer drinking water, improved sewage disposal methods
• Clean Air Acts reduced air pollution that led to 4000 deaths in 5 days in 1952

Question 8

What is the life expectancy?

Answer 8

• How long on average a person born in a given year can expect to live
• As death rate decreases, life expectancy increases
• 2012: males = 79, women, females = 83
• Will soon achieve radical longevity

Question 9

What are the class, gender and ethnic differences between death rates and life expectancy?

Answer 9

• Women live longer than men but there’s been recent changes (employment and lifestyle)
• Those in the north have a lower life expectancy than those in the south
• Those in the poorest areas of England die 7 years earlier than those in the richest areas