Sociology Midterm Terms

Infant Mortality Rate

- the number of infants who die before their first birthday out of every 1,000 births

Cohort/ Period/ Synthetic Cohort

-Cohort: those who begin something at the same time or in the same period constitute a cohort. When the term cohort is used without any modifier, it means a birth cohort, which means those who were born in the same year or time period. There are also cohorts defined by other events, such as marriage cohorts and college graduation cohorts. -Synthetic cohort:the experience of a synthetic cohort is calculated when the effect of the age-specific rates at a given time (in a particular period) is calculated as if it were applied to a cohort. This is what happens in a period life table in the calculation of expectation of life at birth for a particular year. A synthetic cohort is also called a hypothetical cohort. Sex difference in mortality

age/exact age/ age at last birth

Age/age last birthday- how many years of age a person was on his or her last birthday, in contrast to exact age. Exact age- the exact number of years since a person was born. Three months after the 5th birthday, the person's exact age is 5.25.

Census/ Vital Statistics/ Population Register

Census: an official enumeration of an entire population. Usually taken every 10 years. -Vital statistics: records of births, deaths, and often marriages and divorces that are recorded in a timely manner, usually shortly after the given event has occurred. Concerned with the establishment of legal rights. -Population register: a continuously maintained record of the members of the population and of events that occur to them, including births and deaths and sometimes other events, such as marriages, divorces, and migrations.

Crude Birth/ Death/ Growth Rate

Crude birth/death/growth rate- Crude death rate: the number of deaths in that year divided by the midyear population in thousands. Crude birth rate: the number of births in the year per thousand midyear population

Global Burden of Disease: years of life lost (YLL), years lived disabled (YLD) disability-adjusted life years (DALYs)-

Global burden of disease classification: this classification was developed by a World Health Organization project. Causes of death are divided into 1. Communicable and related diseases (including maternal and perinatal conditions and nutritional deficiencies, 2. Non-communicable diseases, and 3. External factors.

Life table, life expectancy at birth, (expectation of remaining life at age x)-

Life table: a way of representing the mortality risks by age in a population. It usually depicts the conditions at a particular point in time, but it can be constructed for a birth cohort. Expectation of remaining life at x- given that a person survives to his or her xth birthday, this is the average number of years that person would live, given age-specific death rates about age x.

Preventive/ Positive Check

Preventative check: this concept was formulated by Thomas Malthus. Postponement of marriage and celibacy among the unmarried were preventive checks to population growth. Preventive checks are also called "moral restraint." Positive check: Also formulated by Thomas Malthus. increased mortality, whether from famine, disease, or war, is a positive check to population growth. Malthus thought that if preventive checks were not employed in a population, then positive checks would emerge to counter a high rate of population growth.

Moral Restraint

Preventive Check

Preventive/ Curative Medical Care

Preventive: medical care that reduces the chance that a person contracts a disease or ailment or reduces the chance that the person dies. Administered before a person has a disease or ailment. Curative: administered after a person has a disease or ailment.

Post Enumeration Survey

a large survey, conducted shortly after a census, which is intended to assess the percentage of people who were undercounted or overcounted in the census overall and by geographic and personal characteristics.

Inoculation/ Vaccination

active disease cells are introduced to a cut or by injection to produce immunity

Communicable/ Non-communicable diseases

communicable: a disease that can be transmitted under normal circumstances from one person to another. Non-communicable- a disease that is not normally transmitted from one person to another. Include cancer, stroke, and heart disease

Infectious/ Degenerative Disease

infectious: a disease that can be transmitted from one person to another under normal conditions. Degenerative: a chronic condition that tends to worsen with age, such as dementia. underlying/contributory cause of death- underlying: the disease or injury that initiated the chain of events that resulted in death. Contributory cause of death- a disease or injury that played a role in death but was not the underlying cause of death.

Natural Increase, Net Migration

natural increase (Nat r): growth or decline per thousand population due to births and deaths (natural processes) CBR-CDR. Net migration (NetMigR)- growth or decline per thousand population due to in-migration and out-migration. Population doubling/halving time · "Questions for Discussion and Review" · Theory of the Demographic Transition

Malthusianism, Neo-Malthusianism

perspectives on the causes and consequences of population growth. Malthus thought although population grows exponentially, food supply grows arithmetically (or linearly). He believed that poverty is the result of population growth outstripping the availability of resources, especially food. He saw the source of too-high population growth to be the absence of moral restraint. He thought that people have a natural urge to reproduce. In Malthus's view, the only acceptable way to restrict fertility was for people to remain celibate before marriage and for marriage to be postponed until the couple could afford to support whatever children resulted (preventive check). By about 1800, some neo-Malthusians came to view that birth control measures are appropriate checks on population growth. By the 20th century, almost all Malthusians came to see contraception as acceptable

Pronatalist

pronatalist policies promote fertility, whether through incentives for having children or through penalties for intentional fertility limitation. (favor high or higher fertility)

De Facto/ De Jure Enumeration

the de facto population of a place is the number of people who are physically in that place at a given time. This is in contrast to the de jure population, which is the number of people whose usual place of residence is in a given place, whether or not they are physically present in the place at a given time. These are both important for census counts

Epidemiologic Transition

the long-term shifts in health and disease patterns that occur as mortality moves from high to low levels. It involves a shift in causes of death from infectious and parasitic diseases (and, more generally, communicable diseases) to chronic diseases (and noncommunicable diseases). The epidemiologic transition has been divided into 4 stages. 1. Age of pestilence and famine, 2. Age of receding pandemics, 3. Age of degenerative and man-made diseases, and 4. Age of delayed degenerative diseases

Population Balance Equation

the observation of how the size of a population changes. PT2 = PT1 + B - D + I - O. where PT2 = population at time 2, PT1 = population at time 1, B= births between Time 1 and Time 2, D= deaths between Time 1 and Time 2, I= migrants into the area (country, state, or world) between Time 1 and Time 2, O = migrants out of the area between Time 1 and Time 2.

Hispanic Paradox

the paradox is that although Hispanics in the US have relatively low socioeconomic status, they have lower age-specific death rates than non-Hispanic whites. Possible explanations include data quality, healthy migrant selection, salmon-bias return migration, and cultural practices. Fundamental causes of disease Some basic numbers of US/World Population, and mortality

Net Undercount

the percentage of the actual population that is estimated to have been missed by the census · Why are surveys used to collect demographic data? How do these reasons differ between more developed countries and less developed countries? · Use examples to illustrate why/how political considerations arise in the collection of demographic data?

Rectangularization of Mortality

the phenomenon that as mortality approaches a very low level, the Lx graph increasingly resembles half a rectangle. In this situation, few deaths occur until an advanced age, after which the population is rapidly depleted by mortality.

Person-year/ Midyear Population

the population in the middle of the year, usually considered as July 1.

Compression of Morbidity

this concept was proposed by Fries. It is the idea that as mortality falls to very low levels and as deaths become concentrated at an advanced age, the average age of onset of various disabling conditions also increases, leading to a smaller number of years lived in a disabled state than if the age of onset of the disability had not increased.

Fundamental Causes of Disease Approach

this is an approach developed by Link and Phelan. In this framework, an individual's or household's resources operate both by affecting whether people engage in healthful behaviors, such as not smoking or consuming excessive alcohol, and by affecting the kinds of neighborhoods and other environments in which a person functions. Residence in less polluted neighborhoods lead to lower death rates and a lower chance of becoming disabled. · What is the difference between a demographic approach and a clinical approach to addressing a question such as infant death? · Briefly describe the difference in views of the causes of disease and death between biomedical researchers and social scientists.

Life span

this is the maximal age to which humans can survive. It was once thought to be 110 years, but is now thought to be perhaps as old as 130 years.

Social Darwanism

this is the position that underlying, and largely irresistible, forces act in societies like the natural forces that operate in animal and plant communities. These social forces produce evolutionary progress through natural conflicts between social groups. The best-adapted and most successful social groups survive these conflicts, raising the evolutionary level of society generally (the "survival of the fittest")

Germ Theory of Disease

this states that many diseases are caused by microscopic organisms. natural/external causes of death- natural: these are deaths caused by disease or other natural processes, such as degeneration. External: deaths that occur from the intentional or unintentional actions of humans. They are accidents, homicides, and suicides. They are also called unnatural causes of deaths or violent causes of deaths.