scholarly journals Quantifying impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic through life expectancy losses: a population-level study of 29 countries

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
José Manuel Aburto ◽  
Jonas Schöley ◽  
Ilya Kashnitsky ◽  
Luyin Zhang ◽  
Charles Rahal ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Life Expectancy ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
Age Groups ◽  
Population Level ◽  
Ww Ii ◽  
Life Expectancy At Birth ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The Usa ◽  
Population Sizes

AbstractVariations in the age patterns and magnitudes of excess deaths, as well as differences in population sizes and age structures make cross-national comparisons of the cumulative mortality impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic challenging. Life expectancy is a widely-used indicator that provides a clear and cross-nationally comparable picture of the population-level impacts of the pandemic on mortality. Life tables by sex were calculated for 29 countries, including most European countries, Chile and the USA for 2015-2020. Life expectancy at birth and at age 60 for 2020 were contextualised against recent trends between 2015-19. Using decomposition techniques we examined which specific age groups contributed to reductions in life expectancy in 2020 and to what extent reductions were attributable to official COVID-19 deaths. Life expectancy at birth declined from 2019 to 2020 in 27 out of 29 countries. Males in the USA and Bulgaria experienced the largest losses in life expectancy at birth during 2020 (2.1 and 1.6 years respectively), but reductions of more than an entire year were documented in eleven countries for males, and eight among females. Reductions were mostly attributable to increased mortality above age 60 and to official COVID-19 deaths. The COVID-19 pandemic triggered significant mortality increases in 2020 of a magnitude not witnessed since WW-II in Western Europe or the breakup of the Soviet Union in Eastern Europe. Females from 15 countries and males from 10 ended up with lower life expectancy at birth in 2020 than in 2015.

scholarly journals Estimating the burden of the COVID-19 pandemic on mortality, life expectancy and lifespan inequality in England and Wales: a population-level analysis

2021 ◽  
pp. jech-2020-215505
Author(s):  
Jose Manuel Aburto ◽  
Ridhi Kashyap ◽  
Jonas Schöley ◽  
Colin Angus ◽  
John Ermisch ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Life Expectancy ◽  
Excess Mortality ◽  
Prediction Interval ◽  
Age Groups ◽  
Population Level ◽  
England And Wales ◽  
Life Expectancy At Birth ◽  
Using Data ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Excess Deaths

BackgroundDeaths directly linked to COVID-19 infection may be misclassified, and the pandemic may have indirectly affected other causes of death. To overcome these measurement challenges, we estimate the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on mortality, life expectancy and lifespan inequality from week 10 of 2020, when the first COVID-19 death was registered, to week 47 ending 20 November 2020 in England and Wales through an analysis of excess mortality.MethodsWe estimated age and sex-specific excess mortality risk and deaths above a baseline adjusted for seasonality with a systematic comparison of four different models using data from the Office for National Statistics. We additionally provide estimates of life expectancy at birth and lifespan inequality defined as the SD in age at death.ResultsThere have been 57 419 (95% prediction interval: 54 197, 60 752) excess deaths in the first 47 weeks of 2020, 55% of which occurred in men. Excess deaths increased sharply with age and men experienced elevated risks of death in all age groups. Life expectancy at birth dropped 0.9 and 1.2 years for women and men relative to the 2019 levels, respectively. Lifespan inequality also fell over the same period by 5 months for both sexes.ConclusionQuantifying excess deaths and their impact on life expectancy at birth provide a more comprehensive picture of the burden of COVID-19 on mortality. Whether mortality will return to—or even fall below—the baseline level remains to be seen as the pandemic continues to unfold and diverse interventions are put in place.

scholarly journals What can lifespan variation reveal that life expectancy hides? Comparison of five high-income countries

2021 ◽  
pp. 014107682110117
Author(s):  
Lucinda Hiam ◽  
Jon Minton ◽  
Martin McKee
Keyword(s):  
Life Expectancy ◽  
Age Groups ◽  
Population Data ◽  
High Income ◽  
Life Expectancy At Birth ◽  
Specific Mortality ◽  
The Usa ◽  
Lifespan Variation ◽  
The Uk ◽  
Aggregate Population

Objectives In most countries, life expectancy at birth (e0) has improved for many decades. Recently, however, progress has stalled in the UK and Canada, and reversed in the USA. Lifespan variation, a complementary measure of mortality, increased a few years before the reversal in the USA. To assess whether this measure offers additional meaningful insights, we examine what happened in four other high-income countries with differing life expectancy trends. Design We calculated life disparity (a specific measure of lifespan variation) in five countries -- USA, UK, France, Japan and Canada -- using sex- and age specific mortality rates from the Human Mortality Database from 1975 to 2017 for ages 0--100 years. We then examined trends in age-specific mortality to identify the age groups contributing to these changes. Setting USA, UK, France, Japan and Canada Participants aggregate population data of the above nations. Main Outcome Measures Life expectancy at birth, life disparity and age-specific mortality. Results The stalls and falls in life expectancy, for both males and females, seen in the UK, USA and Canada coincided with rising life disparity. These changes may be driven by worsening mortality in middle-age (such as at age 40). France and Japan, in contrast, continue on previous trajectories. Conclusions Life disparity is an additional summary measure of population health providing information beyond that signalled by life expectancy at birth alone.

scholarly journals Beyond deaths per capita: comparative COVID-19 mortality indicators

BMJ Open ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. e042934 ◽  
Author(s):  
Patrick Heuveline ◽  
Michael Tzen
Keyword(s):  
Life Expectancy ◽  
Death Rate ◽  
Population Distribution ◽  
Age Groups ◽  
Secondary Outcome ◽  
Crude Death Rate ◽  
Life Expectancy At Birth ◽  
The Usa ◽  
Age And Sex ◽  
Direct Standardisation

ObjectivesFollowing well-established practices in demography, this article discusses several measures based on the number of COVID-19 deaths to facilitate comparisons over time and across populations.SettingsNational populations in 186 United Nations countries and territories and populations in first-level subnational administrative entities in Brazil, China, Italy, Mexico, Peru, Spain and the USA.ParticipantsNone (death statistics only).Primary and secondary outcome measuresAn unstandardised occurrence/exposure rate comparable to the Crude Death Rate; an indirectly age-and-sex standardised rate that can be derived even when the breakdown of COVID-19 deaths by age and sex required for direct standardisation is unavailable; the reduction in life expectancy at birth corresponding to the 2020 number of COVID-19 deaths.ResultsTo date, the highest unstandardised rate has been in New York, at its peak exceeding the state 2017 crude death rate. Populations compare differently after standardisation: while parts of Italy, Spain and the USA have the highest unstandardised rates, parts of Mexico and Peru have the highest standardised rates. For several populations with the necessary data by age and sex for direct standardisation, we show that direct and indirect standardisation yield similar results. US life expectancy is estimated to have declined this year by more than a year (−1.26 years), far more than during the worst year of the HIV epidemic, or the worst 3 years of the opioid crisis, and to reach its lowest level since 2008. Substantially larger reductions, exceeding 2 years, are estimated for Panama, Peru, and parts of Italy, Spain, the USA and especially, Mexico.ConclusionsWith lesser demand on data than direct standardisation, indirect standardisation is a valid alternative to adjust international comparisons for differences in population distribution by sex and age-groups. A number of populations have experienced reductions in 2020 life expectancies that are substantial by recent historical standards.

scholarly journals Kręte ścieżki feminizmu

Porta Aurea ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 192-217
Author(s):  
Anda Rottenberg
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Women Artists ◽  
Eastern Bloc ◽  
Ww Ii ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The Usa ◽  
Cultural Taboos ◽  
International Discourse ◽  
The Media ◽  
Political Realities

The world feminism started in the USA with the women’s struggle for a better pay and working conditions. Transplanted to Europe, and subsequently to the Soviet Union by the communist Clara Zetkin, it promptly died out there, since Soviet women had been made equal with men as for their duties. From then on for numerous decades the aspirations of women, including female artists in Western societies, proved incompatible with the expectations of women within the ‘Eastern Bloc’. This gap was visible already during the role-assigning in WW II, as well as in the means of paying tribute to women’s heroism and their symbolic, or maybe allegoric functioning in social awareness, the latter shaped both by the propaganda and the media and art that came from men’s ateliers. In the post-WW II decades, until the late 1980s, the differences in the approach to goals and means between the conventionally-conceived West and East were still visible. This can be traced on the example of the oeuvre of Polish women artists and their activity in the decades following WW II. It was only after the transformation that Polish women artists-feminists joined in the international discourse, yet maintaining references to their domestic social and political realities, again different from the West, at the same time overcoming subsequent cultural taboos rooted in the collective hypocrisies.

Marshall Aid and British policy on reparations from Germany, 1947–1949

1996 ◽  
Vol 22 (4) ◽  
pp. 361-379 ◽  
Author(s):  
J Farquharson
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
Financial Assistance ◽  
Marshall Plan ◽  
British Government ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The Us ◽  
The Usa ◽  
The Uk ◽  
The Impact

The object of this article is to examine the impact of the Marshall Plan (ERP) on the strategy of reparations from Germany that was pursued by the British government in the postwar era. In order to put this into some kind of context it will first be necessary to provide a brief survey of the mechanism of reparations and then of the rationale behind the system of financial assistance afforded by the USA to Western Europe known as Marshall Aid (its title derived from the US Secretary of State, George Marshall, who pioneered the scheme). The idea of extracting some form of compensation from Germany, to be apportioned among the victors, came to be debated in Whitehall during hostilities, but little attempt was made to coordinate plans among the Allies until the conference at Yalta in February 1945. No consensus could be attained there among the participants (the UK, the USA and the USSR). Stalin lodged a claim for $10 billion of reparations in ten years, which entailed that the Soviet Union would be allocated half of all payments from Germany. The lack of assent from the Western powers led to a new body, the Allied Reparations Commission (ARC), being convened in Moscow, which also failed to reach a conclusion. Reparations were then settled at the Potsdam Conference between the same three powers in July–August 1945.

scholarly journals Mass and uncontrolled immigration as a threat to the civil, legal and civilizational stability in Western European countries and Russia

2019 ◽  
Vol 15 (3) ◽  
pp. 3-9
Author(s):  
R. V. Yengibaryan
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
The United States ◽  
Financial Economic ◽  
Global Politics ◽  
World Community ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The World ◽  
The Usa ◽  
Political Economic

Introduction. Following the collapse, or rather self-liquidation, of the Soviet Union-USSR world events began to develop at a kaleidoscopic speed. Europe, Russia and the United States ceased to be central actors in global politics. Huge civilization countries such as China, India and the African continent broke into global politics with ever-increasing power. The united bloc of Islamic countries began to make aggressive claims to the entire world community, and especially to the countries of Christian civilization. And the most important and unexpected thing is that the peoples, nations, communities everywhere began to return to their civilizational, religious and spiritual roots.Materials and methods. Various methods such as comparative law, systemic, logical analysis and other methods were used in writing this article.The results of the study. The attempt to globalize the world by the socio-political criterion “capitalism socialism” failed. The world community, or rather its political, economic and intellectual elite, was given a clear message: ideologies of all kinds communism, fascism, nationalism, socialism eventually undergo transformation, split into sub streams and practically disappear, but the world religions and civilizations remain.Discussion and conclusion. The world globalized spontaneously and naturally, with financial, economic, political and technological dimensions playing the major role. At the same time globalization laid the foundation of new contradictions among countries that enjoy different social, economic levels of development and belong to various civilizations. Moreover, the interests of civilizations living in different time dimensions began to clash, like Islam that lives in 1441 and other countries that have been living in the 21st century for the second decade. The ideology of multiculturalism both in Western Europe and in the USA turned out to be unrealizable in practice, just like the communist ideology that has sunk into oblivion.

Condition of the Armenian Apostolic Church at the Time of Coming to Authority N. S. Khrushchev

2020 ◽  
pp. 245-265
Author(s):  
Арсен Артурович Григорян
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Research Methods ◽  
Russian Federation ◽  
National Archive ◽  
The State ◽  
State Archive ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The Usa ◽  
The Russian Federation ◽  
Apostolic Church

Цель данной статьи - описать условия, в которых Армянская Апостольская Церковь вступила в эпоху правления Н. С. Хрущёва, начавшуюся в 1953 г. По содержанию статью можно поделить на две части: в первой даются сведения о количестве приходов на территории Советского Союза и за его пределами, а также о составе армянского духовенства в СССР; во второй излагаются проблемы, существовавшие внутри Армянской Церкви, и рассматриваются их причины. Методы исследования - описание и анализ. Ценность исследования заключается в использовании ранее неопубликованных документов Государственного архива Российской Федерации и Национального архива Армении. По итогам изучения фактического материала выделяются основные проблемы Армянской Апостольской Церкви на 1953 г.: финансовый дефицит, конфликт армянских католикосатов и стремление враждующих СССР и США использовать церковь в своих политических целях. The purpose of this article is to describe the conditions in which the Armenian Apostolic Church entered the epoch of the reign of N. S. Khrushchev, which began in 1953. The article can be divided into two parts: first one gives information about the number of parishes in the territory of the Soviet Union and beyond, and about the structure of the Armenian clergy in the USSR; the second one sets out the problems that existed in the Armenian Church and discusses their causes. Research methods - description and analysis. The value of the study lies in the use of previously unpublished documents of the State Archive of the Russian Federation and the National Archive of Armenia. Based on the results of studying the materials, the main problems of the Armenian Apostolic Church in 1953 are: financial deficit, the conflict of Armenian Catholicosates and the eagerness of USSR and the USA, that feuded with each other, to use the Сhurch for their political purposes.

scholarly journals The decomposition of life expectancy for age and cause of death in Tuscany, Italy

2019 ◽  
Vol 29 (Supplement_4) ◽  
Author(s):  
N Nante ◽  
L Kundisova ◽  
F Gori ◽  
A Martini ◽  
F Battisti ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Life Expectancy ◽  
Causes Of Death ◽  
National Level ◽  
Age Groups ◽  
Resistant Bacteria ◽  
Mortality Data ◽  
Life Expectancy At Birth ◽  
Icd 10 ◽  
Reduction Of Mortality ◽  
The Impact

Abstract Introduction Changing of life expectancy at birth (LE) over time reflects variations of mortality rates of a certain population. Italy is amongst the countries with the highest LE, Tuscany ranks fifth at the national level. The aim of the present work was to evaluate the impact of various causes of death in different age groups on the change in LE in the Tuscany region (Italy) during period 1987-2015. Material and methods Mortality data relative to residents that died during the period between 1987/1989 and 2013/2015 were provided by the Tuscan Regional Mortality Registry. The causes of death taken into consideration were cardiovascular (CVS), respiratory (RESP) and infective (INF) diseases and cancer (TUM). The decomposition of LE gain was realized with software Epidat, using the Pollard’s method. Results The overall LE gain during the period between two three-years periods was 6.7 years for males, with a major gain between 65-89, and 4.5 years for females, mainly improved between 75-89, <1 year for both sexes. The major gain (2.6 years) was attributable to the reduction of mortality for CVS, followed by TUM (1.76 in males and 0.83 in females) and RESP (0.4 in males; 0.1 in females). The major loss of years of LE was attributable to INF (-0.15 in females; -0.07 in males) and lung cancer in females (-0.13), for which the opposite result was observed for males (gain of 0.62 years of LE). Conclusions During the study period (1987-2015) the gain in LE was major for males. To the reduction of mortality for CVS have contributed to the tempestuous treatment of acute CVS events and secondary CVS prevention. For TUM the result is attributable to the adherence of population to oncologic screening programmes. The excess of mortality for INF that lead to the loss of LE can be attributed to the passage from ICD-9 to ICD-10 in 2003 (higher sensibility of ICD-10) and to the diffusion of multi-drug resistant bacteria, which lead to elevated mortality in these years. Key messages The gain in LE during the period the 1987-2015 was higher in males. The major contribution to gain in LE was due to a reduction of mortality for CVS diseases.

On the Uses of Disinformation to Legitimize the Revival of the Cold War: Health in the U.S.S.R.

1982 ◽  
Vol 12 (3) ◽  
pp. 481-496 ◽  
Author(s):  
Albert Szymanski
Keyword(s):  
Child Care ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Infant Mortality ◽  
Life Expectancy ◽  
Public Health Education ◽  
The United States ◽  
Mortality Data ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Employment Of Women ◽  
Child Care Facilities

During the 1970s the Soviet Union experienced rising infant mortality rates and a corresponding levelling off of earlier increases in life expectancy. Several Western critics have misrepresented or exaggerated these statistics, suggesting that these trends indicate a general breakdown in the Soviet health care system as well as the failure of the Soviet form of socialism. This paper examines life expectancy and infant mortality data by Soviet republic, showing that rates are not uniform throughout the U.S.S.R. and in many cases compare favorably with those in Western European countries and the United States. It is suggested that the infant mortality problem in the U.S.S.R. is a temporary negative consequence of rapid progress in the areas of industrialization, employment of women, and socialization of child care. It is concluded that improvements in public health education, the quality of child care facilities, and the manufacture and distribution of infant formula will contribute to the rapid resolution of this problem.

Winter War, Anti-Communism and the volunteers from abroad, 1939-1940

2021 ◽  
Vol 21 (21) ◽  
pp. 9-28
Author(s):  
Kristo Karvinen
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Foreign Country ◽  
Contemporary Research ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The World ◽  
The Usa ◽  
Winter War ◽  
The Uk

The 1939 invasion of Finland by the Soviet Union attracted more than just journalists to the frigid north. Thousands of volunteers around the world rallied under the Finnish flag, willing to risk their lives for a foreign country. Over ten thousand arrived before the end of the war, with more on their way, coming from Hungary and Estonia, Canada and the USA, Sweden and the UK. Were they all ardent anticommunists or did they have other motives? This article seeks to answer that question, utilising Finnish and British archives as well as contemporary research into war volunteering. The origins and motives of the volunteers are examined, revealing that their motives ran a wide gamut, including such reasons as anti-communism, linguistic fraternity and spirit of adventure, to name a few.

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