The Determinants of Mortality

Abstract

The pleasures of life are worth nothing if one is not alive to experience them. Through the twentieth century in the United States and other high-income countries, growth in real incomes was accompanied by a historically unprecedented decline in mortality rates that caused life expectancy at birth to grow by nearly 30 years. In the years just after World War II, life expectancy gaps between countries were falling across the world. Poor countries enjoyed rapid increases in life-expectancy through the 1970s, with the gains in some cases exceeding an additional year of life expectancy per year, though the HIV/AIDS epidemic and the transition in Russia and Eastern Europe have changed that situation. We investigate the determinants of the historical decline in mortality, of differences in mortality across countries, and of differences in mortality across groups within countries. A good theory of mortality should explain all of the facts we will outline. No such theory exists at present, but at the end of the paper we will sketch a tentative synthesis.

Old age mortality in Eastern and South-Eastern Asia

“…In other words, at some point in the future, greater gains in would be seen in less rich countries. These results are in line with the classic link between economic growth and mortality or life expectancy at birth (also called the Preston curve) (Cutler, Deaton, and Lleras-Muney 2006;Tapia Granados 2012;Preston 1975;Pritchett and Viarengo 2010). It has been assumed that economic growth could affect life expectancy either directly, through improving material living conditions, or indirectly, through facilitating advances in medical technology, raising educational levels, improving food security and sanitation and infrastructure, developing social welfare systems, and reducing poverty (Janssen, Kunst and Mackenbach 2006).…”

Social connectedness is associated with fibrinogen level in a human social network

“…In our models, an additional social connection predicts a greater decrement in fibrinogen than even an additional year of education. Educational attainment is among the most robust and predictive measures of social status as it relates to health [31,32]. Thus, the inclusion of educational attainment as a control in our models allows us to evaluate the relationship between social connectedness and fibrinogen net of socioeconomic status as conventionally defined.…”

How have Europeans grown so tall?

“…Some observers have argued that most of the health improvement since the late nineteenth century is due to an upward shift in the health production function (Cutler et al, 2006;Easterlin, 1999). These improvements in the health environment are seen most clearly in the steep declines in mortality rates.…”