Description
This book aims to contribute to a better understanding of the variety of factors - biological, social, economic and cultural - associated with persistent inequalities in mortality in the less developed countries. It contains a selection of papers presented at the IUSSP-NIRA Joint Seminar on Biological and Social Correlates of Mortality, held 24th-27th November 1984 in Japan. While death rates in developing countries have declined, the fall has not been across the board, with a sharp contrast between survival chances for the urban, well-educated, white-collar elites, and rural dwellers and city slum populations. Women and children appear to be particularly at risk of premature death in many societies. The book focuses on the biological determinants of mortality rates and on the methodological issues involved in studying changing trends in mortality levels. Some of the papers deal with new conceptual approaches, while others address health and mortality problems in selected countries or groups of countries. A separate section deals with demographic and health impacts of famine and other disasters. The contribution of fertility decline due to mortality and the emerging health problems resulting from the ageing of populations are also examined. This work should appeal to demographers, health professionals and epidemiologists interested in measuring mortality.Table of ContentPart 1: problems and issues in the study of mortality differentials, Lado T.Ruzicka. Part 2 Methodological issues: conceptual frameworks and casual modelling, Josianne Duchene and Guillaume Wunsch; the integration of demographic and epidemiologic approaches to studies of health in developing countries, Ronald H.Gray; some methodological issues in the assessment of the deceleration of the mortality decline, Shiro Horiuchi; measures of preventable deaths in developing countries - some methodological issues and approaches, Stan D'Souza. Part 3 Biological and social factors: changing trends in mortality decline during the last decades, Eduardo E.Arriaga; trends in socio-economic differentials in infant mortality in selected Latin American countries, Jose Miguel Guzman; socio-economic differentials in infant and child mortality in Indonesia in the 1970s - trends, causes and implications, Budi Utomo and Meiwita Budiharsana Iskandar; determinants of child mortality in Turkey, Nusret H.Fisek; effects of inter-birth intervals on infant and early childhood mortality, Alberto Palloni; mortality and health dynamics at older ages, George C.Myers. Part 4 Crisis mortality: extinction and near-extinction of human populations, Andre Bouckaert; famine in China 1959-61 - demographic and social implications, Penny Kane.
