Population VIIEpidemiological Transitions

Epidemiological Transition Model

ETM-within the past 200 years, virtually every country has experienced an epidemiological transition-a long-term shift in health and disease patterns. This transition from a high level of death for young people (communicable/infectious diseases) to low levels of death with death concentrated among the elderly (degenerative diseases). Therefore, the variation by age of mortality is reduced. People survive to advanced ages and then die quickly once reaching that advanced age. This transition, according to Abdel Omran (‘71), is the result of a country undergoing the process of modernization or economic development. The ETM closely parallels the DTM.

***In the past, parents buried their children; now, children bury their parents. (more developed countries)

Stage 1 Epidemics/Pandemics: Infectious and parasitic diseases, famine Ex: Black Plague (25 million Europeans died)

Stage 2 Receding epidemics, infectious diseases (affects high proportion of population, but in

isolation) Ex: Cholera (contaminated water supply), Latin America-leptospirosis (Weil’s Disease), Tuberculosis (see map), West

Africa-Ebola (3,000 confirmed cases), Sub-Saharan Africa-Malaria, AIDS

Epidemiological Transition Model

Stage 3 Degenerative and human-created disease Ex: Cardiovascular disease and Cancer

Stage 4 Delayed degenerative diseases Ex: Alzheimer's, Diabetes

Stage 5? Re-emerging infectious and parasitic disease Ex: Malaria, TB, AIDS

What is causing Stage 5? Where is it located?

What about MERS (South Korea)? Bird Flu-U.S.?

The World’s Deadliest Infectious Diseases

Regionalizing Diseases Sub-Saharan Africa-

South America-

South Asia-

East Asia

Russia and Surrounding States-

AIDS/HIV+ 2010 world distribution: 23 million in Sub-Saharan Africa 5+ million in Asia (India, China, SE Asia) 2 million in Latin America (Caribbean-Haiti)

Sub-Saharan Africa• 70% of HIV cases Zimbabwe, Botswana, Zambia, South Africa, Kenya

Increased death rates

Declining life expectancy

Rectangularization of Death Mortality rates declining, more people surviving to an advanced age