Mortality decline in developing countries and its theoretical implications

According to SRS, since 1980s, mortality rates have been declining continuously among the Indian adult and older ages. Alongside, the morbidity rates increased remarkably during the last two decade. In the current state of mortality transition, country is witnessing the unique phenomena of low mortality and high morbidity during the last two decade. Kumar (1993) addressed low mortality and high morbidity in Kerala, which seems to be true for India and bigger states in present demographic scenario. During 1995/96-2004, the prevalence rate of chronic NCDs increased four-folds than other categories of diseases. Consequently, chronic NCDs were responsible for major share of deaths than any other major categories of causes of death (Visaria 2004). As a result, the mortality transition progresses with greater pace during the last two decade. Modal age at death (M) increased linearly by 5 years for both females and males (r2=0.9515 for females and r2=0.9020 for males). Significant increase in modal age at death ascertained the dominance of old age mortality over the adult age mortality. Among the demographically advanced states, Kerala is foremost where old age mortality has been in dominance since 1970s compared to less advanced state say Uttar Pradesh, where the old age mortality has been in dominance since 1990s.

This paper aimed at investigating the influence of socioeconomic, demographic and household environmental factors on infant mortality in urban and rural areas of Kenya. Descriptive and logistic regression analyses were carried out on 2008/09 Kenya demographic and health survey child datasets in order to help in filling the gap on the factors that explain child survival in Kenya’s urban and rural areas respectively. Descriptive statistics show that majority (77 percent) of infant deaths were recorded in rural areas probably depicting the health inequalities that exist between urban and rural areas. Results of bivariate analysis show that sex of the birth, ever breastfed, region and source of drinking water were significantly related to infant mortality in rural areas while level of education, maternal age, birth order and ever breastfed factors were significantly related to infant mortality in urban areas. Multivariate analytical results show that region, sex of the birth, ever breastfed and source of drinking water were significantly related to rural infant mortality with solely ever breastfed factor being a significant explainer of urban infant mortality. There is need to advocate for compulsory exclusive breastfeeding for the first six month of a child’s life given the finding that children who are not breastfed are t

This study was examined the relationship between gender, region, year and mortality rates of malignant neoplasm, heart disease, hypertension, cerebrovascular diseases. Data were collected from Ministry of Public Health in 2002-2009. Variables were gender, region, year and mortality rate. Results showed people living in Bangkok were the highest mortality rates of malignant neoplasm, heart disease, hypertension and cerebrovascular diseases when compared with other regions. People living in the South were the lowest mortality rates of malignant neoplasm as well as the lowest mortality rates of heart disease, hypertension, cerebrovascular diseases in the Northeast. Multiple regression analysis found gender, region, and year were statistical significance (p<0.05). People living in Bangkok were more likely to have mortality rates of malignant neoplasm, heart disease, hypertension, cerebrovascular diseases than other regions. Female was less likely to have mortality rates of malignant neoplasm, heart disease, hypertension and cerebrovascular diseases than male. The study dramatically showed about mortality differences in gender and region. Future research should strengthen risk factors mortality differences in each region, especially lifestyle, risk behavior and culture.

In this research, the researcher took 34 suicide cases in Jingshan County, Hubei Province, China as examples and started from a specific family life angle, to establish the relationship between suicide and family life and took advantage of the "anomie" theory-- "standard absent" and "conflicts between cultural goals and social means" --in sociology to explain how current transformation in China’s whole society has been giving rise to changes in family life, and then leading to the rural elderly suicide.