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Posts feedMortality convergence
In his blog on socio-economic differentials in England and Wales, Torsten Kleinow showed how mortality rates between sub-groups converge with age. And in his blog on ill-health retirements, Kai Kaufhold demonstrated how excess mortality relative to normal retirements reduces, then vanishes.
Reverse Gear
Against a background of long-term mortality improvements it is understandable to expect that societal change and developments in health care will be agents of progress. Recent research from Princeton Professor of Economics Anne Case and Nobel prize-winning economist Angus Deaton jolts such complacency in the starkest way.
A chill wind
In a previous blogs I have looked at seasonal fluctuations in mortality, usually with lower mortality in summer and higher mortality in winter. The subject of excess winter deaths is back in the news, as the UK experienced heavy mortality in the winter of 2014/15, as demonstrated in Figure 1.
East meets West
This month sees the twentieth anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. This is therefore an appropriate time to remind ourselves of a dramatic example of the plasticity of mortality.