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Viewing: Blog Posts Tagged with: life expectancy, Most Recent at Top [Help]
Results 1 - 6 of 6
1. Climate and the inequality of nations

Countries grow richer as one moves away from the equator, and the same is generally true if one looks at differences among regions within countries. However, this was not always the case: research has shown that in 1500 C.E., for example, there was no such positive link between latitude and prosperity. Can these irregularities be explained? It seems likely an answer can be found in factors strongly associated with latitude.

The post Climate and the inequality of nations appeared first on OUPblog.

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2. Better medical research for longer, healthier lives

When I started my career as a medical statistician in September 1972, medical research was very different from now. In that month, the Lancet and the British Medical Journal published 61 research reports which used individual participant data, excluding case reports and animal studies. The median sample size was 36 people. In July 2010, I had another look.

The post Better medical research for longer, healthier lives appeared first on OUPblog.

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3. Trends in European life expectancy: a salutary view

By David A. Leon


Making a difference to the health of populations, however small, is what most people in public health hope they are doing. Epidemiologists are no exception. But often caught up in the minutiae of our day-to-day work, it is easy to lose sight of the bigger picture. Is health improving, mortality declining, are things moving in a positive direction? Getting out and taking in the view (metaphorically as well as literally) can have a salutary effect. It broadens our perspectives and challenges our assumptions. Looking at recent trends in European life expectancy is a case in point.

Since 1950 estimated life expectancy at birth of the world’s population has been increasing. Initially, this was accompanied by a convergence in mortality experience across the globe—with gains in all regions. However, in the final 15 years of the 20th century, convergence was replaced with divergence, in part due to declines in life expectancy in sub-Saharan Africa. However, this global divergence was also the result of declining life expectancy in Europe. Home to 1 in 10 of the world’s population, and mainly comprised of industrialized, high-income countries, Europe has over 50 states. These include Sweden and Iceland that have consistently been ranked among the countries with the highest life expectancies in the world. But while for the past 60 years all Western European countries have shown increases in life expectancy, the countries of Central and Eastern Europe (CEE), Russia and other parts of the former Soviet Union have had a very different, and altogether more negative experience.

Trends in life expectancy between 1970 and the latest year available are shown in the Figure 1 for an illustrative selection of countries. These data were taken from one of two open sources : (i) the WHO Health for All Database or (ii) the Human Mortality Database, depending on which one had the longest time series. Differences between the sources are minimal for the purposes of this editorial. It is important to emphasize at the outset, that with one exception (discussed below), the trends shown in the Figure 1 are overwhelmingly driven by changes in mortality in adult life, not in infancy or childhood and are not the result of artefact.


Former communist countries of Eastern Europe

Between 1970 and the end of the 1980s, life expectancy at birth in the former communist countries of CEE (Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia), Russia and the Baltic states (Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania) stagnated or declined (Figure 1). This led to an increasing gap between them and Western European countries as the latter steadily improved. However, within a few years of the collapse of the Berlin wall in 1989, life expectancy started to steadily increase in the countries of CEE. This vividly illustrates that mortality can decline rapidly in response to political, social and economic change. Interestingly, once underway, the post-1989 increase in life expectancy in these countries has continued at a steady rate that is very similar to Western Europe. These parallel trajectories mean that the East–West gap, measured in terms of absolute differences in years of life expectancy, is proving very difficult to eliminate, despite earnest hopes to the contrary.

The trajectories of Russia and other Soviet countries, including the three Baltic States in the Figure 1, were strikingly different to those of the CEE countries. The anti-alcohol

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4. My Book’s Life Expectancy

Perhaps it is because I’ve just had a dear friend die unexpectedly that I’ve been wondering about life expectancy … of anyone or anything. I know that experts are always talking about this subject as it pertains to plants, some animals, people of certain ethnicities, or those who have cancer or some other disease which may cause their life expectancy to be shortened. I know orange trees are excpected to live aboout thirty-five years. My dog, a Golden Retiever, I belive would do well to survive over ten or twelve years while a Chihuahua should live to about eighteen years. People who have pancreatic cancer are often given less than five years to live.

So I began to wonder what is the life expectancy of a book? I know that a newly published book by a traditional book publisher is marketed and advertised agressively for a year or two and if the sales don’t please the publishing house, it soon loses their interest. Without that backing, I believe many books simply die. In time falling out of print is a books’ natural fate.

What about self-published books, POD books, and books published by small presses? A major difference is that authors who do so much to get their books into print in the first place seem to me to be much more aggressive in marketing their books. They certainly don’t stick to the year or two time line which traditional published adhere to.

Another enormous difference is that they can’t really fall out of print. POD technology is such that they are printable far into the future. I am so happy about Becoming Alice. I know that she will oulive me and then … who knows what can happen?


Filed under: Becoming Alice, Books Tagged: Life Expectancy, Marketing books, POD Technology, publishers

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5. So What You're Saying Is: You Got Nothin'

Twenty-four hours.


Forty-eight hours.

Two weeks.

Fifteen to twenty-five days.

Eight days to two weeks.

The above time frames are answers I found on pages in the Google search query "life expectancy of a housefly." 

Really.

Well, that explains it. I had always heard that houseflies live no longer than 24 hours, but that had never been the case for the ones who managed to wrangle their way into my house. This week has been no exception. One of those creepy, ginormous black flies zinged past me Monday morning as I headed out for a day of (ugh!) clothes shopping with the kiddos. (Which, incidentally, turned out far better than expected...) 

Anyhoo, I barreled back into the house and...well, maybe it will be more interesting if I give you a little run-down:

Monday 
Day One. Big Fat Hairy Fly zings past me into the kitchen as the kiddos and I step out. Attempts to shoo it out are unsuccessful. It has free reign in my house aaaaaaall day. (Yes, the shopping trip took that long...)

Tuesday
Day 2. Big Fat Hairy Fly buzzes around my living room, taunting me as it lands on top of the ceiling fan. Unwilling to unleash the significant dust bunnies from the fan blades - can dust bunnies be buff? - I concede defeat again. Knowing we have to go back out for more clothes shopping since Monday didn't yield all we needed, I turn my back on the living room and usher the kiddos out the door. All during the drive to the stores, I try not to think about the germ-filled interloper hanging out in my house. Or the fact that in fifteen minutes I will be shopping. Again. Yeah. Did I ever mention I hate shopping?

Wednesday
Day 3. Big Fat Hairy Fly buzzes irritatingly behind the office blinds long into the night as I tap out my Teddy Bear Picnic post. Every few sentences I whack at the blinds, to no avail. I shut down the computer, grit my teeth against the maddening buzz, and retire for the evening. Mercifully, it does not follow me.

Thursday
Day 4. Big Fat Hairy Fly doesn't appear. The kiddos and I have a leisurely morning, reading, eating breakfast, playing. No fly. Lunchtime comes, and we stage our own Teddy Bear Picnic in the living room, complete with scads of teddy bears, one Turtwig (don't ask), crackers, green tea, milk, apples and brownies. Still no fly. By late afternoon, it cools off, so we play outside. Late afternoon turns into evening, and we make a reluctant return indoors. Still no fly. Dinner. Chowder and Flapjack. Still no fly. Bedtime, stories, smooches goodnight. Again, no fly.

Assuming the Big Fat Hairy Fly was finally in that Big Garbage Can in the Sky, I plop down in front of the computer and get to work. 

Well. You know what happens when you assume...

10:41 PM - BFHF slowly buzzes around my desk, then wobbles through the air to the teeny space between wall and bookcase. (Natch.) Buzzing stops. Whew!

10:45 PM - BFHF emerges from behind the bookcase, crawls across my inkjet paper, then does a buzz-by past my head. Where is that little...

10:49 PM - Bzzt! Bzzzzzzt! Dang! Where did it go?

10:53 PM - No buzz. Dare I think?

10:56 PM - Still no buzz. Alrighty then, this has to be it.

11:05 PM - Type. Type. Type. Munch on licorice. Type. BZZZT! BZZZZZZZT! You have GOT to be kidding me! What is this? Invinci-Fly? We're goin' on 96 hours, for cryin' out loud..

11:19 PM - Still buzzing... Errrrgghh! Enough! I'm going to bed. Big Fat Hairy Fly apparently lives to annoy another day. 

Twenty-four hours, my eye!


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6. I Lie For a Living

Anthony Shugaar (The International Spy Museum) National Geographic 2006 I spotted this on the non-fiction shelf in my local library teen room and thought "Yeah, that's a book a teen boy would pick up." Being a few decades removed I can still tap into my inner teen boy. I picked it up without a seconds worth of hesitation. But what a disappointment. It's a smartly designed book, very

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