Poster session on Health, mortality and longevity (1)

Urban air pollution is an important environmental factor that is effecting a large portion of urban dwellers in developing economies. Due to the limitations of dose and impact nature, direct measurement of negative implications of urban air pollution is difficult and WHO has developed indirect methods such as Environmental Burden of Disease. However, in this study to measure the economic costs of urban air pollution, we find that WHO methodology needs modifications to suit local conditions.

In most countries of the world, national levels of mortality in childhood have fallen substantially in recent decades. A large difference in the mortality of female children indicates gender discrimination in access to the right to live.
The study has the following specific objectives:
i) To estimate the under-five mortality by sex in India.
ii) To examine the pattern & factors that affect sex differential in under-five mortality across the region.
iii) To bring out the policy implications to reduce under-five mortality across the region.
The main purpose of this paper has been to analyze the effects of the biological and socio-economic on the survival of male and female U-5 children and its differences across the region in India. In all the six regions, the relative risk (F/M) of mortality is higher in rural areas than in urban areas and the relative risk decreases as the education level of mother increases. Significant factors causative to under-5 mortality in India are the place of residence, parent’s education and work status, wealth, social group, mother’s smoking/alcoholic habit and her health. Among all the above factor mother’s education, residence and religion are the most significant factors for sex differential in U-5 mortality.

We analyzed the weight of Avoidable mortality (AM) in Mexico and its evolution between 2001-2010, taking into account the differences in degree of state marginalization, in gender and their contribution to the years of life lost (YLL). Data comes from the mortality registries from INEGI in Mexico and the marginalization index from CONAPO. We calculated the mortality rates and the YLL proposed by Arriaga using the AM criteria of Nolte and McKee. Mortality rates due to avoidable causes were higher for groups with the highest degree of marginalization. The poorest states lost more YLL between 2001-2010 due to these causes of death. Men had the highest mortality rates due to AM. Women increased their life-years, mainly due to the reduction of deaths due to cervical cancer, maternal deaths and perinatal deaths. These results show wide disparities in the magnitude and impact of AM by groups of state marginalization and gender.
Key words: avoidable mortality, state marginalization index, Mexico, mortality rates, years of life lost

Background: Okinawa, an island prefecture furthest from mainland Japan, experienced one of the highest infant mortality rate (IMR) among all prefectures prior to 1973.
Objective: To document the trend in IMR for Okinawa and Japan and investigate the leading causes of infant death.
Method: Infant mortality data from 1973 to 2009 were retrieved. The main causes of infant death were obtained for the recent period 2005-2008.
Results: IMR decreased from 14.8 (Okinawa) and 11.3 (Japan) in 1973 to 2.4 in 2009. For Japan, the leading causes of infant mortality were (1) congenital malformations, deformations and chromosomal abnormalities; (2) respiratory and cardiovascular disorders specific to perinatal period; and (3) sudden infant death syndrome, which together accounted for 55% of all infant deaths during the period 2005-2008. For Okinawa, the total number of deaths was small (about 30 to 40 annually). Consequently, the rates for various causes were unstable, apart from the leading cause congenital malformations, deformations and chromosomal abnormalities.
Conclusion: Okinawa prefecture was successful in reducing its IMR to one of the lowest rate in the world. Implementation of a good health care system including universal health insurance and neonatal care contributed to this significant reduction over the past 4 decades.

Rates of morbidity and mortality in the UK are higher for non-white ethnic minority groups compared with the white majority population. Ethnic health inequalities have been partly attributed to lower socioeconomic resources and experienced racism. However, there is still substantial debate on the causal mechanisms behind health inequalities, and it is not clear when and how the ethnic patterning of chronic disease risk emerges during the early life course, and how this varies across ethnic groups.
There are important differences in the processes that have led to the ethnic makeup of the populations in the UK, including motivations for and patterns of migration, and both historical and contemporary ethnic relations. Hypothesised causal factors of ethnic health inequalities may thus differ substantially across ethnic groups, leading to possible variations in the patterning of ethnic health inequalities.
This study will analyse a birth cohort with an oversample of ethnic minority children in the UK to examine and compare inequalities in child health and development across ethnic groups, exploring cognitive development and socioemotional behaviours. Results will make a unique contribution to research on ethnic inequalities in child development and health, allowing a better understanding of the determinants of health inequalities

Using data from the Birth to Twenty (Bt20) 1990 Johannesburg-Soweto born cohort, this paper aims to advance the understanding of links between the experiences of early life-course socio-demographic transitions and their association with body mass index (BMI) in a rapidly transitioning urban environment. A variety of regression modelling techniques are used to examine associations between early life-course socio-economic status (SES) transitions between birth and late adolescence and demographic change (move of address, or primary caregiver marital status change) with changes in BMI and/or obesity risk. Initial results show that for females, a strong positive association between residential mobility and BMI is observed for those also experiencing increased household SES between birth and 12/13 years, while no effect is observed for males. This was shown against a context of a tripling of the female overweight prevalence between late childhood and age 15 years. Further analyses will explore at what age between birth and late adolescence changes in the socio-demographic environment associate most with BMI change. Current findings suggest that targeting those on an upwardly mobile SES trajectory within changing urban environments undergoing nutrition transition with interventions to prevent obesity could have positive benefits.

The paper uses CLHLS data from 1998 to 2005, employing Cox hazard regression model to analyze the impact of religious attendance on the mortality risk of the oldest old, and to examines the roles of physical/mental health, healthy behaviors and socioeconomic supports in this relationship, in order to test four kinds of theoretical models in the western literature. The results show that religious attendance is correlated with mortality risk. However, the effects of other potential explanatory variables can somehow reduce the association. These findings suggest that religious attendance may represent a proxy for physical health, especially in the oldest old.

Objective: Given the recent increase of violence in Mexico we want to analyze the levels, trends and impact of mortality due to homicides between 2000 and 2010, at a national and state level. Material and Methods: Homicide mortality statistics from Mexico’s INEGI were used. We calculated the standardized mortality rates and the years of life lost (YLL) proposed by Arriaga between 15 and 49 years of age using an assumption of no mortality between the selected ages. Results: Between 2000 and 2007, a decreasing trend for the national mortality rates was observed (10.8 to 8.2 homicides per 100,000 inhabitants respectively); the same was presented with the YLL (a decrease of 23.95%). But in the last three years (2008-2010) the incidence of homicides increased significantly, reflected in both mortality rates (a 180.23% increase) and YLL (causing a decrease of 0.17 years in the national temporary life expectancy). Discussion: Mortality due to homicides has increased significantly in Mexico in recent years; this after a period of a continued decline in mortality for this cause at the beginning of the decade. However, these results don’t imply that violence is a generalized problem, given that we show that it concentrates mainly in some states.

The present study examines the effects of Korean husband’s socioeconomic status (SES) on international migrant wife’s self-reported health (SRH) and life satisfaction in South Korea. Earlier studies show that spouse’s SES is an important factor for the respondent’s health-related outcomes. Due to their low SES and the commercialized international marriage process, migrant female spouses are presumed to have a high dependence on their Korean husbands and therefore suffer a resultantly unequal relationship within the marriage. Thus, we expect that the SES of the husband plays a significant role in determining marriage migrant’s health and life satisfaction. The data to be used is drawn from the National Survey on Multicultural Families 2009, conducted in Korea. This study analyzes Chinese, Vietnamese, Filipino, Japanese and Korean Chinese female marriage migrants aged 14 and over, living in Korea in 2009 (n=49,087). To address the independent effects of Korean husband’s SES, we include three dimensions of covariates: foreign wife’s characteristics, Korean husband’s characteristics and couple’s characteristics. The results from logistic regression models suggest that there are significant disparities of SRH among female migrant partners in relation to the Korean husband’s educational attainment .

Russia is consistently among the top three leading European countries of teenage suicide deaths for the last 20 years. Currently, suicide mortality is 30 per 100,000 among Russian boys of 15-19 years old and 8.5 among girls of the same age. There is an extremely high regional variation between minimal and maximal values of the rate: it is close to 90-fold now. To test the hypothesis about the climatic and geographical determinants of teenage suicides we examined the situation in the Central Federal District of Russia. The results permit to make conclusion about the socio-economic determination of suicide among adolescents: currently in Russia climatic and geographical component is not anything significant. Firstly, this is shown by the multiple scatter in mortality among adolescents living in the same regions but in different types of communities (from the minimum levels in the regional centers to maximum levels in rural areas). Secondly, the excessive mortality from suicide among teens is primarily determined by the rural population, so it seems obvious the primacy of socio-economic factors lead to a lack of prospects in life. Thirdly, there is the vector from minimum risks of suicide among university students to maximum risk among unemployed youth.