Population Trends and Problems of Public Health Essay

The scope and emphasis of a public wellness weapons platformme are necessarily influenced by the changing peculiaritys of the community it serves. The arrange of population growth affects long-range planning of community health and medical facilities. Alterations in geezerhood composition, internal migration of racial or industrial groups, changes in population density and urban-rural movement require current adaptation of the health program to solve the new problems thus created.Among the various characteristics of recent population gallerys, mount uping of the population is one of the most fundamental in its bearing on national health. The social and economic effects of an aging population swallow long been recognized. Dr. Louis I. Dublin appraised the problem of old age in near detail in 1926, when the provision of economic security for the aged was the paramount theme of contemporary discussion. 1 The passage of the Social Security performance in 1935 represented the fruits of the efforts of this earlier period.Adjustment of national policy with respect to the health problems associated with aging of the population has been slower in development. Under the foothold of the Social Security Act, a limited expansion of activities designed to bear on the health of sure-enough(a) bountifulscontrol of cancer and pneumonia, and industrial hygiene servehas been made This paper was presented at the Eighteenth Annual Conference of the Milbank repository Fund, April 23, 1940. The Milbank Quarterly, Vol. 83, No. 4, 2005 (pp. 569608)c 2005 Milbank remembrance Fund. Published by Blackwell Publishing. Reprinted from The Milbank Memorial Fund Quarterly, Vol. 18, No. 4, 1940 (pp. 35992). Style and usage are unchanged. possible in the cooperating States. However, the Act makes no provision for the solution of such fundamental problems as invalidity insurance and medical care of the aged. During the past five long time, the health aspects of old age have received increasing attention in the discussions of public health administrators.It therefore seems appropriate to resurvey this general problem, and to consider, in particular, the disposition of future trends in mortality, morbidity, and the receipt of medical care which may be expected solely as a result of changing age structure of the population. The Effect on the Death Rate The effect of a declining proportion of children and an increasing proportion of elders on the future trend of the termination rate may be readily predicated from the characteristics of age variation in mortality, which are generally familiar.The period of infancy is characterized by a giving proportion of fatally terminating illnesses. Following the high mortality of the first year, the end rate declines rapidly in the succeeding years of early childhood, and the rate among children 5 to 14 years of age is lower than in whatsoever period of life. The age curve of mortality remains at a relatively low level in youth and the young adult ages. During the period of middle age, a marked upward trend in the death rate becomes apparent, and the increase thereafter is progressive.The sharp downward trend in the death rate following infancy and the rapid grind away which occurs during middle and old age are the most pronounced characteristics of age variation in mortality. The mortality rate in infancy and early childhood has shown a marked reduction in the present century, period the rate at the advanced ages has remained practically unchanged. Thus, the death rate at the older ages has shown an increasing relative excess over the rate in the early years of life. Furthermore, aging of the population has increased the number of older persons exposed to the chance of death.Deaths of persons 45 years of age and over constitute over two-thirds of all deaths in this country in 1935 in the enrollment States of 1900, the proportion was approximately two-fifths. It thus results that the dis eases which at present are the hint causes of death in the population of all ages are largely those characteristic of middle and old age. Diseases of the heart, cerebral hemorrhage, nephritis, cancer, and diabetes accounted for 65 per cent of the deaths among persons 45 years of age and over, and for 44 per cent of the total deaths