Crisis mortality: documenting the effects of conflict, famines and natural disasters

Armed conflict and famine often have large-scale population
consequences. Yet the measurement of the mortality consequences of
such crises is challenging, given that accurate data at the population
level before, during and after such crises is often lacking and
classical demographic methods and model life tables are ill-suited for
such situations. In this paper, I explore the flexible,
two-dimensional mortality model recently proposed by Wilmoth et
al. (2012) and consider its adaptation to crisis mortality
situations. Specifically, I draw on high quality data from a diverse
array of demographic surveillance sites, population censuses,
longitudinal surveys, and series from the Human Mortality Database to explore the suitability of this mortality
modeling approach to famine and armed conflict situations. These
situations include a diverse array of armed conflict and famine
situations from both contemporary and historical populations. I
contrast this approach with existing approaches used by the United
Nations Population Division and the World Health Organization and
conclude with an assessment of this indirect mortality modeling
approach and outline future research directions to advance crisis
mortality estimation approaches.

The death rates of regional subpopulations, accounting for unobserved heterogeneity in their distribution of deaths were analyzed. There was found that force of mortality alter the frailty distributions of regional subpopulations. At the end of the health crisis in Ukraine regional subpopulations of East and South are less heterogeneous in their distribution of deaths in comparison with the population from North and West. Changes in the frailty distribution resulted in lower standardized life expectancy of about half a year for the population of North. The subpopulations of East and South manifest the lowest standardized life expectancy. The absence of any effect among West subpopulation supports the assumption that the power of health crisis influence on the frailty distribution in regional subpopulations depends of population epigenetical background.

The purpose of our study is to explain the socio-epidemiological relationship of poverty and suicide. We used two waves of data from the Seoul Welfare Panel Survey from 2009 to 2010. And A multinomial logistic regression analysis was performed targeting a total of 5,749 subjects of over 15 years old. The results of the study can be summarized as follows. First, the suicidal ideation and poverty status of individuals can change rapidly in a short period of time, such as in one year, but when looking at a whole group, the size of the poverty group and the rate of suicidal ideation generally remained constant. Second, we found that poverty was a significant factor of suicidal ideation from cross-sectional analysis of first wave. Third, the prevalence of suicidal ideation in the poverty group at the time of first wave was reduced at a rate 2.26 times more than that of the highest level of household income group at the time of second wave. Fourth, the suicidal ideation of individuals who belonged to the poverty group at the first wave but had escaped from poverty at the second wave ceased having suicidal ideation at a rate 2.05 times higher than members of the non‐poverty group. We found that suicidal ideation is concentrated in the poverty group and the transition of suicidal ideation is sensitive in this group.

A growing number of studies in the fields of demography, epidemiology, and economics has shown that early life circumstances are critical determinants of morbidity, lifespan prospects, and socioeconomic outcomes. This paper explores the long-term effects of early-life exposure to war on children born or conceived during the Vietnam War. While war is known to have harmful short-term consequences, such as raised mortality, displaced populations, and destruction of infrastructure, little is known about its medium or long-term effects. This paper investigates the Vietnam War’s effects on the socioeconomic outcomes of the Vietnamese population using census microdata. The results from this study will provide insights into the long-term impacts of armed conflicts on children and youth as they develop from infancy to young adulthood. The findings may also have policy implications for post-war aid efforts.

Between 1990 and 2000 almost all African countries transitioned from single-party political system to multiparty systems, a political system characterized by competitive elections. This institutional transformation produced a remarkable shift in governance in the continent especially in collective bargaining and open up space for contestation of public goods. As such, the transition has been lauded for its success in improving access to the political sphere and for inciting an increase in political liberty. However, whether these transitions translated into improvements in social well-being is unclear, especially whether these transition lead to equitable distribution of public goods to lead to verifiable improvements in social indicators, such as health indicators, is an open question. This paper fills that gap by tracing the manner by which the transition translated (or not) to transformations in the primary health sector, by investigating, infant mortality rates, as a proxy of population health, before and after the transition in all African countries for which aggregate data on health, social, and economic indicators is available covering the years between 1980 and 2010.

Infant and child mortality has been long reflections of community health status and hence the level of development and welfare. During the past two decades, different geographical parts of Sudan were arguing the inequality of services distributions and some of them embarked on military movements. This study aimed to estimate level of infant and children less than five mortality in different Sudanese states and to assess whether these rates were associated with level of development and armed conflicts.
The paper is based on the (SHHS), which was conducted in 2006 and covered all states of Sudan even the troubled of it. The sample for the (SHHS) was designed to provide estimates on MDG’s indicators. From each state a sample of 1,000 households was drawn for the survey. Also additional secondary data on the economic growth were utilized from the Central Bureau of Statistics. The data were analyzed statistically using the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS). The analysis involved frequency distributions and correlations; Chi-square test for independence as well as logistic regression were conducted.
The results showed that there a is appositive significant correlation between under-five mortality and the level of development in the Sudanese States. The estimates of neonatal, infant and under-5 mortality rates we

From September 1870 to May 1871, the siege of Paris, first by the Prussian army then by 'legalist' French troops, resulted in a harsh famine: Parisians were forced to eat rats and even the elephant of the zoo. We study the impact of this shock on both child mortality and the height stature of survivors, with a specific focus on the selection effects linked to mortality as well as to fertility and migration. To this aim, we collect original data on 20 year-old military conscripts born in one of the poorest district of Paris between 1855 and 1875; conscripts born in the poorest district of Lyon, France's second largest city, are used as a comparison group. The analysis of height stature evolution across birth cohorts reveals a rather unusual pattern: a large drop in height of 2 centimeters is observed for cohorts who were 7 to 9 year-old by the time of the siege, whereas lower age children seem unaffected. Using data from the 1866, 1872 and 1876 population censuses, we examine whether selection effects can account for this specific timing, and conclude preliminarily it is not the case. We tentatively argue that early-age children were protected from the famine at the expense of their older brothers or sisters who could not catch up.

Background: To estimate and quantify spatial effects of childhood mortality using data from a household survey and accounting for the impact of conflict and other potential correlates in DRC.
Methods: Data on mortality of children from the DRC was available from a national representative cross-sectional household sample. Participants were 8,992 children under (U5) with 1005 observed deaths from the 2007 Demographic and Health Survey.
Results: The 30 percent decrease of under-five mortality observed between 2001 and 2007 masks large provincial variations and a north-east south divide due to the ongoing conflicts. The unadjusted analysis indicates that the overall risk of a child death is higher even in provinces not affected by conflicts. In multivariate analysis, higher odds of deaths were associated with shorter birth intervals ≤ 24 months [1.14 (1.04, 1.26)], children born at home [1.13 (1.01, 1.27)] or children living with a single mother [1.16 (1.03, 1.33)]. There were significant spatial variations showing high mortality risk by geographic location except for North Kivu.
Conclusion: The study provides evidence of high U5 mortality in DRC which is unexplained by the ongoing conflict and other factors considered. U5 mortality maps point to a lack of progress toward the Millennium Development Goal4.

The influence of climatic factors on variations in adult height has been documented by different scholars over the last decade (Baten, 2002; Steckel and Rose, 2002; Komlos, 2003; and Koepke and Baten, 2005). This paper is based on individual data from a collection of previous anthropometric studies and newly available data from high-resolution palaeo-climate reconstructions and presents new evidence about climate as a determinant of human stature, being stature a health indicator and a measure to the standards of living. We first examine the complex relationship between humans and climate by presenting a new model that explores this relationship. We then evaluate the datasets and show results about the extent to which the climate has affected human stature in adults born in 10 countries located on Africa, Asia, Europe and Latin America over the last 200 years.

China’s great famine is known as ‘three-year natural disaster’.For the lack of continuous statistical data from 1950 to 1982 in China, traditional research methods were powerless to reconstruct the life table and mortality trends. Calculation of excess deaths during the Great Famine is complicated and confusing.Data used in this study was from China’s six censuses on age distributions, annual age-specific fertility and mortality rates which were also obtained from one-percent population samples survey initialed in 80’s.Modified Lee-Carter model is used in the study. Based on modified Lee-Carter prediction model of morality, this study did reverse prediction with reference to China’s official age-specific mortality data to re-construct and calculate single-age morality and normal deaths if there were no great famine in the last century. In the end, with regard to total deaths estimation calculated by scholars home and abroad, we did estimation research of abnormal deaths led by famine.
It is shown in our result that population dynamics, especially abnormal deaths, during great famine, mainly occurred between 1958 and 1961. If there were no famine, normal deaths would be 43.39 to 43. 85 million. With famine, abnormal deaths are between 16.24 and 23. 37million.