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"In Denmark the life expectancy of women has been declining since 1980, and is now the lowest of all OECD countries. Based upon analyses of the different trends in mortality of 35-64-year-old women in Denmark compared to women in Norway and Sweden, national differentials in external determinants of morbidity and premature mortality are described. The excess mortality of women in Denmark is linked to lifestyle factors: tobacco smoking, alcohol and drug consumption. We discuss the possible impact of other external factors....", (excerpt)

Background: Many European countries have in recent decades reported growing socioeconomic differentials in mortality. While these trends have usually paralleled high unemployment and increasing income disparities, Sweden had low unemployment and narrowing income differences. This study describes trends, 1961-1990, in total and cardiovascular mortality among men, 45-69 years of age, in major occupational classes in Sweden., Methods: From census data four cohorts were created from those enumerated in 1960, 1970, 1980 and 1985. Through record linkage with the Swedish cause of death registry the mortality in each cohort was followed for 5-10 years. Age-standardized mortality trends 1961-1990 were calculated for occupational groups, categorized according to sector of the economy., Results: The increase in mortality among middle-aged men in Sweden 1965-1980 was mainly a result of increasing cardiovascular mortality among industrial workers and farmers. In the 1980s the trend for these groups changed into a last decrease in mortality similar to that for non-manual occupations for the whole period. Consequently the rate ratio for industrial workers in comparison with men having a professional/managerial type of occupation increased from 0.98 to 1.43. The slowest decrease is now found among unqualified occupations in services and transportation., Conclusions: While Sweden, during the period studied, had narrowing income differentials and low unemployment this result points to the importance of working conditions in understanding trends and distribution of male adult mortality.

We studied causes of death in a cohort of all young males (n = 50,465) conscripted for military service in 1969-70. Six hundred eighty three deaths occurred in the cohort during the follow-up through 1983. Injury-related deaths accounted for 75% of all deaths. Of these, 38% were definite suicides, 10% undetermined suicides and 30% motor vehicle accidents. The validity of officially recorded causes of death was studied by scrutinizing all death certificates (n = 683) and forensic reports, including police reports, toxicological and histological data, from a sample (n = 322) of deaths with unclear circumstances. Of 161 officially recorded suicides (E950-959), only one case was reevaluated into poisoning, "undetermined" (E980). Of 47 cases officially recorded "undetermined" (E980-989), 9 were reevaluated into definite suicide (E950-959) although we believe that this is still an underestimation of "true" suicide cases. An alcohol concentration of more than 0.1 g% was found in 45% of all violent deaths (E800-999), 34% of all suicides and 60% of all "undetermined" deaths. We conclude that the causes of death in most cases of injury related death in young age are recorded with high accuracy. Reevaluation of recorded deaths from "undetermined" causes revealed a number of definite suicides, although the "true" number of suicides is difficult to assess even after close scrutiny of the information available.

The author demonstrates that an accurate detailed life table that represents average mortality experience between two censuses can be constructed if the censuses provide accurate records of the single-year age distribution of a closed population. This life table can begin at age zero if accurate data on the annual number of births during the inter-censal period are available; otherwise the first age in the life table must equal the duration of time between the censuses. "The estimation technique involves the calculation of the number of persons attaining each age during the period between the censuses and the determination of the average rate of increase in the number at each individual age. The success of the technique comes from the use of interpolation to calculate how many in each cohort attain each exact age the cohort passes through between the censuses." The estimation technique is tested using two alternative methods of interpolation. Some illustrations based on data for Sweden and China are included., (excerpt)

"This article compares four procedures in assessing the effect of the change in mortality conditions in an age group between two periods on the expectation of life at birth. The differences and similarities are pointed out. The outcome of applying the different approaches on the difference in the expectation of life at birth of the life tables of Sweden for the periods 1901-10 and 1936-40 is also discussed.", (excerpt)

Factors affecting the decline in mortality among Swedish men that occurred during the latter part of the nineteenth century are analyzed. In addition to the impact on mortality of changes in real wages, the author develops the hypothesis that a decline in alcohol consumption was a contributing factor. These relationships are explored using time-series analyses on official data for the period 1861-1913. The results indicate that "real wages as well as alcohol consumption per capita had a statistically significant effect on male mortality. When the alcohol predictor was omitted in the model, the wage effect did not reach statistical significance. The decline in male mortality during the study period was, on the average, about one per cent per year. According to the results, a good half of this decrease is attributable to the trends in real wages and alcohol consumption." (SUMMARY IN FRE), (excerpt)

This study describes the development of elderly mortality in the Nordic countries (Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden) during this century. Long-term trends in total mortality are examined on the basis of life table statistics. More recent trends (from the 1950s onwards) are described by means of annual mortality rates according to a rough classification of causes of death. The series of vital statistics have been utilized as the data source for the long-term trends, and the original data for annual trends have been obtained from the mortality data bank files of the WHO. Marked improvements were observed in survival at advanced ages in the Nordic countries. However, the development has not been stable as in recent decades the elderly mortality rate has fluctuated, roughly comparable to the fluctuations in mortality among the younger age groups. The fact that the rate of recent improvement has been greatest in Finland where there, traditionally, is a high mortality level, and low in Norway and Sweden, where mortality levels are low, is in accordance with the idea of approaching a certain biological lower limit to mortality. However, certain characteristics seem to suggest that further advances are possible. Marked improvements have taken place recently in Iceland even though its mortality level at the end of the 1960s was already low. In addition, a large proportion of the differences in mortality rates between the Nordic countries may be due to external factors related to living conditions or life-style. Recent trends in mortality from several causes of death may also be primarily linked to such factors. Further research focusing particularly on a more detailed classification of causes of death and sociodemographic differentials within the national elderly populations is suggested.

In a large primary prevention trial among middle-aged men in Gothenburg, Sweden, register data were used to establish marital status, alcohol abuse, and economic problems for nearly all of the study population in 1970-1973. Married men had a higher participation rate in the examinations for the trial than non-married men, with non-married alcoholic men having the lowest participation rates. Among the participants, 26% of divorced men, but only 5% of married men were registered with the social authorities for alcohol problems. Serum cholesterol, body mass index, and diabetes were not associated with marital status, but smoking was more common among widowers and divorced men. Nonfatal myocardial infarction was not related to marital status among participants, after a mean follow-up of 11.8 years. Death from coronary heart disease was more common in non-married men in univariate analysis, but not when other risk factors were taken into consideration. In participants, married men had a mortality rate of 9%, compared with 20% for divorced men. After adjustment for other risk factors, including registration for alcohol problems, smoking, and occupational class, the association between marital status and total mortality was still highly significant. Among nonparticipants in the trial, 13% of married men were registered for alcohol problems, compared with 41% of divorced men. Nonparticipants had higher all-cause mortality, 18% for married men and 33% for divorced men.

This reassessment is limited to observations concerning trends in mortality and fertility and concerning longrun prospects for population growth. Recorded changes in mortality are compared with 3 projections made many years ago. Projections of European mortality made in 1941-42 understated by a wide margin the actual increase in expectation of life because of unforeseen technological changes in the prevention and cure of fatal disease. On the other hand, a projection made in 1955 for India, foreseeing a rapid rise in the 1950s and slower progress later on because of the exhaustion of the easier gains, appears to have been accurate and also to depict the prospects in other populations of relatively high mortality and low income. A different projection of life expectancy in Mexico was also quite close to actual changes in Mexican mortality; it was based on a universal curve constructed to represent how life expectancy rises, increasing ever more slowly as it approaches an upper limit. This curve (1 for each sex), constructed for projection of Mexican mortality, is employed as a standard of comparison for mortality changes in many countries. A number have followed the standard for females very closely for more than 3 decades; in developed countries, male life expectancy has generally fallen short of the standard. The almost universal low fertility in developed countries contrasts with the great diversity of levels and trends of fertility in developing countries, some of which retain undiminished high fertility and others of which have recently attained rates of childbearing as low as in the developed areas. Instances of surprisingly little change and surprisingly rapid change in fertility are described. In the future, growth of populations of developed countries will probably be slight; the future rate of increase in the developing areas depends on the unpredictable timing and pace of childbearing reduction in populations where fertility remains high. In the long run, world population growth may resume its typical pattern of moderate growth interrupted by catastrophic setbacks.

"This study examines the determinants of short-term fluctuations in nuptiality in Sweden from 1751 to 1913, using ARIMA [Auto Regressive Integrated Moving-Average] models.... The following general patterns prevailed throughout the period 1751-1913: both better economic conditions (good harvests and lower rye prices) and higher mortality (leading to more remarriages, and enabling first marriages through inheritance) were followed by higher nuptiality. In addition, emigration of single persons after 1850 was inversely related to nuptiality." (SUMMARY IN FRE), (excerpt)

"The response of mortality to short-term changes in real wages is analyzed here not just in its own right but more particularly as an indicator of long-term shifts in the general standard of living. It is hypothesized that the response would have been stronger the lower the standard of living. The relationship between age-specific mortality levels and real-wage series for Sweden 1751-1860 is analyzed using a distributed-lag model and spectral analysis. The results suggest a real shift in the material standard of living during the period." (summary in FRE), (excerpt)

The Study of Men Born in 1913 is a prospective population study of cardiovascular diseases in Gothenburg, Sweden, that started in 1963. To describe survival curves and mortality pattern, all boy-children born alive in 1913 in the city of Gothenburg, were identified. This birth cohort was followed from birth to age 70 for residence, vital status and cause of death. At the age of 50 years, 25% of the birth cohort were dead and at age 70, 43% had died. The high infant mortality and the great impact of infectious diseases in the beginning of this century is illustrated. The death rate for the cohort was almost identical to national figures for men in the same age group. Men who migrated from Gothenburg had a death rate very similar to those who stayed. It can therefore be concluded that the men in the Study of Men Born in 1913 is a representative sample not only of men in Gothenburg but also of men in Sweden as far as mortality is concerned. Special attention was paid to death from otitis media complications, congestive heart failure, and diabetes. Few persons died from these diseases before age 50 when the prospective study started and therefore did not influence the study of the natural history for these conditions to any great extent. Otitis media infections might be studied retrospectively from this age.

Using the statistics of mortality of Caucasian population of 48 states of the USA (1969-1971) it was demonstrated that the real age dynamics of human mortality may differ significantly both from the Gompertz law and from the Gompertz-Makeham law. Using of the Gompertz-Makeham formula leads to appearance of negative A value in 77 cases out of 96. This makes it difficult to interpret this parameter as a "background" component of mortality. Using of the Gompertz formula in different age groups leads uncoordinated changes in alpha and R0 values in every state. Hence, it is impossible to plot geographically stable characters for Gompertz parameters alpha for subsequent epidemiological analysis. The "aging rate", estimated by parameter is not stable throughout the life span of 30-92 years, but changes with certain pattern.

The relationship between unemployment and health status is examined in a comparative study of five European countries using a time series model. "The hypothesis considered in this paper is that the secular decline in mortality rates can be attributed to the secular rise in real per capita income and that the remaining fluctuations in mortality rates can be explained by cyclical movements in income and variations in unemployment." The data concern the Federal Republic of Germany, France, Italy, Sweden, and Ireland., (excerpt)

Trends in infant and perinatal mortality in Sweden over the period 1875 to 1975 are analyzed. The study is based on data from three parish registers in northern Sweden. The data are presented for four 25-year periods for five categories of survival: less than 1 day, 2-7 days, 8-28 days, 1-6 months, and 7-12 months. "The main question was whether and to what extent the specific general characteristics of this population influenced the general infant mortality statistics in the area.", (excerpt)

"This study concerns the population of a North Swedish geographical isolate, characterized by endogamy and high incidence and prevalence of schizophrenic psychoses and mental retardation. Mortality rates and survival for a period of one hundred years, 1875-1975, have been analysed." (summary in ENG, FRE), (excerpt)

Important changes in age-adjusted mortality (35-74 y) have occurred in the last 35 years in men. This is apparent from the study of the mortality patterns from 7 countries which were chosen as representative of populations with varying lifestyles. Mortality from all causes has shown the greatest decrease in Japan and the greatest increase in Hungary. From 1970 on cardiovascular mortality demonstrates a downward trend in all countries, except in Sweden where it remains virtually unchanged and Hungary where it rises markedly. Cancer mortality shows an upward trend which levels off during the last 15 years with the exception of Hungary. Changes in dietary and smoking habits and mass treatment for hypertension offer the most plausible explanation for the observed changes.

Objectives To conduct the first-ever nationwide, population-based cohort study investigating survival patterns of all patients with incident SSc in Sweden compared with matched individuals from the Swedish general population. Methods We used the National Patient Register to identify patients with incident SSc diagnosed between 2004 and 2015 and the Total Population Register to identify comparators (1:5), matched on sex, birth year and residential area. We followed them until death, emigration or the end of 2016. Follow-up of the general population comparators started the same date as their matched patients were included. We estimated all-cause survival using the Kaplan–Meier method, crude mortality rates and hazard ratios (HRs) using flexible parametric models. Results We identified 1139 incident patients with SSc and 5613 matched comparators. The median follow-up was 5.0 years in patients with SSc and 6.0 years for their comparators. During follow-up, 268 deaths occurred in patients with SSc and 554 in their comparators. The 5-year survival was 79.8% and the 10-year survival was 67.7% among patients with SSc vs 92.9% and 84.8%, respectively, for the comparators (P  < 0.0001). The mortality rate in patients with SSc was 42.1 per 1000 person-years and 15.8 per 1000 person-years in their comparators, corresponding to an HR of 3.7 (95% CI 2.9, 4.7) at the end of the first year of follow-up and 2.0 (95% CI 1.4, 2.8) at the end of the follow-up period. Conclusion Despite advances in understanding the disease and in diagnostic methods over the past decades, survival is still severely impacted in Swedish patients diagnosed with SSc between 2004 and 2015. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aims: The majority of prospective studies on alcohol use and mortality risk indicate that non-drinkers are at increased risk of death compared to moderate drinkers. This article investigates the association between middle-aged women’s alcohol use and mortality, controlling for socio-demographic and health variables. An association between alcohol use and hospital in-patient care is also analysed. Methods: Baseline data were collected during 1995–2000 in a population-based cohort of 6917 women aged 50–59 years living in southern Sweden, the Women’s Health in Lund Area (WHILA). After 9 years, a register follow-up was performed from the National cause-of-death register and the Swedish hospital discharge register. Cox proportional hazards regression were used to analyse differences in survival. Results: During the observation period, 201 (2.9%) women died. In a crude model, non-drinkers had a significantly increased risk for death. When including socio-demographic predictors in the model, there was a strong indication that non-drinkers were at increased risk for death compared to moderate drinkers. Adding health predictors, not drinking alcohol was no longer a risk factor for death. Further, analyses of in-patient care indicate that non-drinkers had poorer health during their entire adult life. Conclusions: This study underlines the importance of including health status at base-line when prospectively studying the association between alcohol use and mortality, otherwise moderate alcohol consumption may appear more beneficial than is the case. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper examines population trends, age-specific death rates and causes of death for the elderly Sami and settlers during the colonisation era (between 1750 and 1900). The source material is a set of data files from the Demographic Data Base (DDB) at Umeå University that covers parish records from three different parishes. Early in the colonisation period (1750-1840) the Sami had a lower proportion of the elderly population (?60 years old), compared to the non-Sami and the rest of Sweden. At the end of the colonisation period (1841-1900), the proportion of elderly Sami increased and was above the proportion of elderly non-Sami and more similar to the rest of Sweden. The analysis also reveals that the differences in mortality rates among the elderly Sami and their non-Sami counterparts diminished during the entire colonisation era (1750-1900), mainly because of an increased infant mortality among the non-Sami. Rather than ethnic differences in causes of death, the results show larger differences between the parishes. The study can conclude that the Sami population's mortality declined, the health improved, and the Sami advanced more rapidly in the model of epidemiologic transition, a milestone not yet reached by other indigenous people around the world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: We examine the effect of heat waves on mortality, over and above what would be predicted on the basis of temperature alone. Methods: Present modeling approaches may not fully capture extra effects relating to heat wave duration, possibly because the mechanisms of action and the population at risk are different under more extreme conditions. Modeling such extra effects can be achieved using the commonly left-out effect-modification between the lags of temperature in distributed lag models. Results: Using data from Stockholm, Sweden, and a variety of modeling approaches, we found that heat wave effects amount to a stable and statistically significant 8.1-11.6% increase in excess deaths per heat wave day. The effects explicitly relating to heat wave duration (2.0-3.9% excess deaths per day) were more sensitive to the degrees of freedom allowed for in the overall temperature-mortality relationship. However, allowing for a very large number of degrees of freedom indicated over-fitting the overall temperature-mortality relationship. Conclusions: Modeling additional heat wave effects, e.g. between lag effect-modification, can give a better description of the effects from extreme temperatures, particularly in the non-elderly population. We speculate that it is biologically plausible to differentiate effects from heat and heat wave duration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Due to scanty individual health data in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), health planners often use imperfect data sources. Frequent national-level data are considered essential, even if their depth and quality are questionable. However, quality in-depth data from local sentinel populations may be better than scanty national data, if such local data can be considered as nationally representative. The difficulty is the lack of any theoretical or empirical basis for demonstrating that local data are representative where data on the wider population are unavailable. Thus these issues can only be explored empirically in a complete individual dataset at national and local levels, relating to a LMIC population profile. Methods and Findings: Swedish national data for 1925 were used, characterised by relatively high mortality, a low proportion of older people and substantial mortality due to infectious causes. Demographic and socioeconomic characteristics of Sweden then and LMICs now are very similar. Rates of livebirths, stillbirths, infant and cause-specific mortality were calculated at national and county levels. Results for six million people in 24 counties showed that most counties had overall mortality rates within 10% of the national level. Other rates by county were mostly within 20% of national levels. Maternal mortality represented too rare an event to give stable results at the county level. Conclusions: After excluding obviously outlying counties (capital city, island, remote areas), any one of the remaining 80% closely reflected the national situation in terms of key demographic and mortality parameters, each county representing approximately 5% of the national population. We conclude that this scenario would probably translate directly to about 40 LMICs with populations under 10 million, and to individual states or provinces within about 40 larger LMICs. Unsubstantiated claims that local sub-national population data are "unrepresentative" or "only local" should not therefore predominate over likely representativity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, the mortality among the Swedish voluntarily insured is described. It is based on calculations of the mortality among the Swedish insured from 2001 to 2005, and in the total Swedish population. The total population data has been used to compute the mortality trend with the Lee-Carter model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: We conceptualize social capital as an aggregate factor affecting health production and analyze the effect of community social capital (CSC) externalities on individual mortality risk in Sweden. The study was based on a random sample from the adult Swedish population of approximately 95,000 individuals who were followed up for 4–21 years. Two municipality-level variables – registered election participation rate and registered crime rate – were used to be a proxy for CSC. The impact of CSC on mortality was estimated with an extended Cox model, controlling for the initial health status and a number of individual characteristics. The results indicate that both proxies of CSC were associated with individual risk from all-cause mortality for males older than 65+ (p =0.013 and p =0.008) but not for females. A higher election participation rate negatively and significantly associated with the mortality risk from cancer for males (p =0.007), and may also have exerted protective associations for cardiovascular mortality (p =0.134) and deaths due to “suicide” (p =0.186) or “other external causes” (p =0.055). Similar associations were observed for the crime rate variable. The findings were robust to alternative specifications examined in the sensitivity analysis. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

M. Ramstedt: Has the impact of population drinking on harm become weaker in Sweden? An analysis of the development in alcohol consumption and alcohol-related harm in Sweden 1990-2005 * AIMS The main aim of this paper is to analyse the development in alcohol-related mortality and other indicators of alcohol-related harm for the period 1990-2005 but with focus on the recent period of rising population drinking. * DATA The harm indicators included are various forms of alcohol-related mortality (accidents. cirrhosis, suicide. homicide and an index of alcohol-specific mortality) and hospitalisations (index of alcohol-specific diagnoses. liver cirrhosis and alcohol poisonings) as well as alcohol-related crime indicators (police-reported assaults. drink-driving offences and police arrests for drunkenness). Data on alcohol consumption were obtained from the Swedish Monitoring survey. * RESULTS The findings confirm previous studies suggesting that recently alcohol-related mortality in general has not increased as expected with the rise in alcohol consumption. Still, a closer took revealed several indications of higher alcohol mortality today compared with the period before consumption started to increase, e.g., for liver cirrhosis, fatal accidents and alcohol-specific mortality in Southern Sweden. Further, alcohol-related hospitalisations in somatic care and hospitalisations for liver cirrhosis and alcohol poisonings have increased among both men and women and a recent upward trend was found regarding reported drink-driving offences, alcohol-related traffic accidents and violent crimes. * CONCLUSION Taking all indicators together suggests that alcohol-related harm in Sweden today has become higher compared with the situation before population drinking started to rise in the late 1990s, though not at the expected extent for art harms. A tower level of drinking in Sweden would most likely give rise to less alcohol-related problems among men and women. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction : The WHO MONICA Project (Multinational Monitoring of Trends and Determinants in Cardiovascular Disease) was initiated in 1982. The purpose was to evaluate to what extent mortality trends could be explained by changes over time in the population load of conventional cardiovascular risk factors. To test this hypothesis, time trends in cardiovascular event rates have been correlated with trends in levels of risk factors in 35- to 64-year-old men and women in 38 populations. In most MONICA populations, the study has covered a period of 10 years or more. Methods : All acute myocardial infarction and stroke events have been registered in a population-based setting in Norrbotten and Västerbotten counties from 1985 and onwards. The total population is approximately 510,000 inhabitants. In the frame of the WHO MONICA Project, the same strict criteria have been used in all years. Another part of the MONICA Project is population risk factor surveys. In Northern Sweden the first survey took place in 1986 and the following surveys were performed in 1990, 1994, and 1999, including the age group 25-74 years (the first two surveys were of the age range 25-64 years). Results : From 1985 to 2000, in total 18,105 suspected stroke events, aged 25-74 years, were scrutinized and validated at the central stroke office in Northern Sweden. Of these, 13,908 were found to fulfil the MONICA criteria of an acute stroke. During the period 1985 to 1998, in total 13,228 cases of suspected acute myocardial infarction, aged 25-64 years, were registered. Of these, 8,744 fulfilled the MONICA criteria for acute myocardial infarction. In the four surveys, in total 9,000 randomly selected men and women were invited for survey. Of these 6,952 (77%) participated in the surveys. Conclusion : From 1985 and onwards, the WHO MONICA project has been going on in Northern Sweden. During the whole time the same strict WHO criteria have been followed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Unlabelled: A register-based study of the impact of obstetric and neonatal care on stillbirth and neonatal death rate was performed on all births in Sweden in 1983-1995. Each birth was assigned to a primary delivery hospital where the mother with a term singleton pregnancy was most likely to have been delivered (not possible for 25% of the deliveries), and the catchment areas of each hospital were classified according to the level of care of that hospital. Only small differences in total mortality existed between the different levels of care of the primary hospital: areas served by primary hospitals with obstetric service and resources for neonatal intensive care including continuous positive airway pressure but without facilities for ventilator treatment for prolonged periods showed a 7% excess risk of stillbirth or neonatal death.Conclusion: In areas with the lowest level of care of the primary delivery hospitals (with no or only basic neonatal care) the total mortality was not increased, indicating that the referral system works well. When the analysis was repeated for specific causes of death, more marked differences were noted, especially for death due to obstetric complications where the death risk increased with decreasing level of care of the primary delivery hospital. Even though no marked differences in total mortality were seen, a further reduction can be obtained by increasing referral for some specific conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rectangularization of human survival curves is associated with decreasing variability in the distribution of ages at death. This variability, as measured by the interquartile range of life table ages at death, has decreased from about 65 years to 15 years since 1751 in Sweden. Most of this decline occurred between the 1870s and the 1950s. Since then, variability in age at death has been nearly constant in Sweden, Japan, and the United States, defying predictions of a continuing rectangularization. The United States is characterized by a relatively high degree of variability, compared with both Sweden and Japan. We suggest that the historical compression of mortality may have had significant psychological and behavioral impacts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Selection (genetic and cultural) and environmental variation are the principal mechanisms determining patterns of demographic change in human populations. Conditions exist under which the nature and intensity of these forces can be inferred from temporal trends in the demographic variables. These conditions, which can be expressed in terms of relations between the Malthusian parameter and population entropy, provide a means for evaluating the effect of selective and nonselective factors on demographic trends in human populations. The distinction between the roles of selection and environmental factors is illustrated by a study of the demographic transition in Sweden (1778-1965). This study shows that demographic changes during the pre- and posttransitional phases are determined mainly by environmental factors, whereas the changes during the transitional phase are mainly due to cultural selection. This analysis provides, for all three phases of the demographic transition, quantitative measures of the intensity of the forces (selective and nonselective) acting on both mortality and fecundity distributions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When age-specific death rates are available for single year ages any of several formulas may be used to estimate the probability of dying in an age interval, nqx. For 5-year age intervals, however, the simplest formulas are usually not as precise as some that are more complex. If in addition, the population is stable but nonstationary or is subject to fairly regular birth cycles, a formula due to Keyfitz and Frauenthal performs markedly better than others. Tests on real populations also support Keyfitz-Frauenthal, and suggest that actual differences between other competing formulas may be small. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Methods are presented which produce Maximum Likelihood Estimates (MLE) of the degree of heterogeneity in individual mortality risks under a variety of assumptions about the age trajectory of those mortality risks. With these estimates of the degree of population heterogeneity it is possible to adjust comparisons of mortality risks across populations for the effects of population heterogeneity, differential mortality selection, and different age trajectories of the force of mortality. These methods are demonstrated by applying a variety of standard assumptions about the age trajectory of the force of mortality to the analysis of a broad range of cohort mortality data for the U.S. and Swedish populations. The estimates of the degree of heterogeneity, produced under all of the selected force of mortality models, consistently indicated a considerable degree of heterogeneity in mortality risks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper has two principal aims: (1) to analyze and measure how the demographic variables-mortality, fertility, and immigration- affect the cost of education; (2) to evaluate what possibilities developing countries, such as those of Latin America, have for a rapid educational improvement. The paper relates demographic and educational variables of three different populations: Sweden, 1840-1965; the United States, 1850-1960; and Latin America, 1930-2000. Three educational variables are also cone sidered: (a) school attendance rates by sex and age; (b) distribution of students of same age by grade; and (c) cost of student by grade. Demographic changes in countries such as Sweden and the United States were favorable for the development of education. For the future, unless an increase of fertility occurs, mortality and fertility changes will not have a significant effect on the cost of education in these countries. In current less developed countries the demographic changes during the past were less favorable to educational development. A future reduction of fertility will significantly help them to achieve a higher educational level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article investigates on the absolute and relative movement in income in the past three years leading to mortality in Sweden. The data were analyzed from the linked population registers in Stockholm County for all deaths in 2002. Net household income after all taxes and transfers was equivalized using statistics scale in the country and placed into one of 20 income bands from the population.