Morbidity and Mortality

How do you calculate mortality?

Number of deaths due to a disease divided by the population

What factors affect mortality?

Age distribution, gender, occupation, income, literacy rate, access to food, medical facilities

What factors affect infant mortality?

Age of mother, birth control, birth interval, sex of infant, education level of mother, status of women in society, income, climate, geographical location

How does literacy rate affect mortality?

Areas with high literacy levels have higher life expectancies whereas areas with low literacy rates have low life expectancies. The reasoning behind this is that when people can read & write, they can obtain higher paying jobs and therefore receive a higher income improving their life expectancy. In addition, when people can read they can read information on preventing the spread of disease and basic hygiene standards improving life expectancy.

Define crude death rate

The average annual number of deaths a year per 1000 of the population

Define life expectancy

The average number of years to be lived by a group of people born in the same year, if mortality at each age remains constant in the future

Define infant mortality

The number of deaths of children under the age of 1 per 1000 live births per year

Define case mortality rate

The proportion of reported cases of a specified disease or condition which are fatal within a specified time, a measure of the severity of the disease.

Define morbidity

The proportion of sickness or of a specific disease in a geographical locality

Define mortality

The relative frequency of deaths in a specific population

Define age specific death rate

This shows death rates per 1000 population by sex for age groups e.g. under 1, 1 - 4, 5 - 15 etc.

How does the age of the mother affect infant mortality?

Younger mothers (less than 20 years) giving birth generally results in higher infant mortality rates. The same is true for older women (40 - 49 years).