The Control of Mortality

Expectation of life at birth has nearly doubled in the more developed countries in the last 150 years, and now often exceeds seventy years. Better water supplies and sani tation, the effective control of dangerous infectious and parasitic diseases, and higher living standards and educational standards have all contributed to this improvement. In the developed countries, death rates are now very low for all age-groups except the older adults. Accidents are the major cause of death of teen-age children and young adults, while heart diseases and cancer are responsible for the deaths of over half of older people. A feature of the reduction in death rates has been the increased excess mortality of males. There have also been big and rapid reductions in death rates in many developing countries, even in the absence of important improvements in living standards. Antibiotics and insecticides have made a major contribution to this movement in the last twenty years. It is unlikely that death rates will fall as rapidly in the next few decades as in the recent past in either developed or developing countries.