Population VII
Epidemiological 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 AfricaEbola (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 AfricaSouth AmericaSouth 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