Life Expectancy Essay ⋆ Environment Essay Examples ⋆ EssayEmpire

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Life expectancy is a term employed to statistically describe the average length of time a person within a given human population, such as a particular country or time period, lives from birth until death. Like other tools for determining the nature of demography, the measuring of life expectancy rates is sensitive to various factors. As a consequence, it can be calculated in different ways. For example, life expectancy may be measured without utilizing the infant mortality rate-this form of calculating life expectancy is commonly employed within nations that suffer from high child mortality levels.

Average life spans are longer today than in the past, thanks to modern technology and scientific understanding of disease. Increased wealth and improvements in standards of living have also led to better diets, making humans healthier and less susceptible to particular diseases than in prior times in many parts of the world.

The introduction of technologies has been important in augmenting average life expectancies. Sir Joseph Bazalgette first developed urban sewage systems on a citywide scale in London during the Victorian age (in the mid-1800s). In addition, medical advances have played an important role in lessening the presence and influence of disease. Progressive medical thinking has helped make once life-threatening illness curable. Also in Victorian London, medical practitioners like Dr. John Snow were pivotal in understanding the true nature of disease. Dr. Snow, with his studies on cholera, was able to scientifically prove that cholera was a waterborne illness. Consequently, not only was the nature of disease better understood, but public administrations were better prepared to deal with incidents of illness. Over time this allowed levels of disease to decline and life expectancies to rise.

A variety of factors can influence life expectancy levels. Dietary patterns, in particular poor nutrition, greatly influence the level of life expectation. In places where diets are nutritionally poor, possibly as a result of famine or natural disasters like floods and typhoons that can devastate local harvests, occurrences of disease increase and life expectancy levels fall.

Of similar significance is the character of a society’s urban places that may have rapidly grown to unprecedented levels in terms of spatial size, demographic scale, and urban density after the onset of industrialization. Extraordinary pressure may be put on the local infrastructure, which can result in environmental degradation such as water pollution and higher rates of disease, deprivation, and death. Under such conditions, epidemics may push up the mortality rates among those most susceptible to disease, such as old people, children, and disadvantaged social groups, thereby lowering life expectancy rates within the urban locale and the nation as a whole.

Generally, as the world has developed economically, life expectancy has increased. However, when a nation initially industrializes and experiences rapid urbanization for the first time, the poorest in society, especially in urban settlements, experience difficulties on an unprecedented level. Furthermore, as the number of poor within a nation may be great, this can negatively influence the life expectancy rate within the country. Immediately following industrial progress the country may experience a decline in average life span, even while national levels of wealth increase. On the other hand, as time passes following the onset of industrialization, life expectancy levels increase dramatically, especially when compared over a time frame of 100 years or more.

In England, the world’s first industrial and urban country, life expectancy rose from about 36 years on average in 1801 to 49 years by 1901. By 2001 the English life expectancy was about 78.5 years, although great regional variances were known to exist. In industrial cities like Manchester, men on average live for just 69 years and women for 76 years. In contrast, in affluent suburbs of West London like Kensington and Chelsea, men usually live to 80 and women to 85. In the United States, life expectancies also vary and it is common to observe differences between ethnic groups and genders.

Worldwide, the level of life expectancy varies. The varying prevalence of poverty is commonly acknowledged as a reason for why national life expectations differ from place to place. Present life expectancies vary between that of African nations such as Swaziland and Botswana, whose citizens on average live for less than 34 years, to wealthy societies like Hong Kong, Macao, Andorra, and San Marino, where people commonly live for more than 81 years.

As a result of such differences, global strategies have been composed by organizations such as the United Nations to improve life expectancies in many parts of the world and so lessen life expectancy discrepancies between continents. In particular, much focus has been placed on nations within Latin America, Africa, and parts of Asia, where poverty and treatable disease, like malaria, typhoid, and influenza, still have the greatest influence on quality of life, longevity, and mortality rates, especially for children and the poor. In forging policies to deal with such human inequalities, it is hoped social justice can be demographically manufactured, allowing people within less developed and poorer continents to extend their life spans.

Bibliography:

Robert Fogel, The Escape from Hunger and Premature Death, 1700-2100: Europe, America, and the Third World (Cambridge University Press, 2004);
Stephen Manuck, Behavior, Health and Aging (Lawrence Erbaum Associates, 2000);
Christine Overall, Aging, Death and Human Longevity: A Philosophical Enquiry (University of California Press, 2003);
James Riley, Poverty and Life Expectancy: The Jamaica Paradox (Cambridge University Press, 2005);
Terry Tirrito, Aging in the New Millennium: A Global View (University of South Carolina Press, 2003);
Zeng Yi, Longer Life and Healthy Aging (Springer, 2006).