Long Term

The contributors to Long Term use the tension between the popular embrace and legalization of same-sex marriage and the queer critique of homonormativity as an opportunity to examine the myriad forms of queer commitments and their durational aspect. They consider commitment in all its guises, particularly relationships beyond and aside from monogamous partnering. These include chosen and involuntary long-term commitments to families, friends, pets, and coworkers; to the care of others and care of self; and to financial, psychiatric, and carceral institutions. Whether considering the enduring challenges of chronic illnesses and disability, including HIV and chronic fatigue syndrome; theorizing the queer family as a scene of racialized commitment; or relating the grief and loss that comes with caring for pets, the contributors demonstrate that attending to the long term offers a fuller understanding of queer engagements with intimacy, mortality, change, dependence, and care. Contributors. Lisa Adkins, Maryanne Dever, Carla Freccero, Elizabeth Freeman, Scott Herring, Annamarie Jagose, Amy Jamgochian, E. Patrick Johnson, Jaya Keaney, Heather Love, Sally R. Munt, Kane Race, Amy Villarejo, Lee Wallace

Changes in liver-related mortality by etiology and sequelae: underlying versus multiple causes of death

Background The expanded definition of liver-related deaths includes a wide range of etiologies and sequelae. We compared the changes in liver-related mortality by etiology and sequelae for different age groups between 2008 and 2018 in the USA using both underlying and multiple cause of death (UCOD and MCOD) data. Methods We extracted mortality data from the CDC WONDER. Both the absolute (rate difference) and relative (rate ratio and 95% confidence intervals) changes were calculated to quantify the magnitude of change using the expanded definition of liver-related mortality. Result Using the expanded definition including secondary liver cancer and according to UCOD data, we identified 68,037 liver-related deaths among people aged 20 years and above in 2008 (29 per 100,000) and this increased to 90,635 in 2018 (33 per 100,000), a 13% increase from 2008 to 2018. However, according to MCOD data, the number of deaths was 113,219 (48 per 100,000) in 2008 and increased to 161,312 (58 per 100,000) in 2018, indicating a 20% increase. The increase according to MCOD was mainly due to increase in alcoholic liver disease and secondary liver cancer (liver metastasis) for each age group and hepatitis C virus (HCV) and primary liver cancer among decedents aged 65–74 years. Conclusion The direction of mortality change (increasing or decreasing) was similar in UCOD and MCOD data in most etiologies and sequelae, except secondary liver cancer. However, the extent of change differed between UCOD and MCOD data.

Changes in Liver-related Mortality by Etiology and Sequelae: Underlying Versus Multiple Causes of Death

Background: The expanded definition of liver-related deaths includes a wide range of etiologies and sequelae. We compared the changes in liver-related mortality by etiology and sequelae for different age groups between 2008 and 2018 in the United States using both underlying and multiple cause of death (UCOD and MCOD) data. Methods: We extracted mortality data from the CDC WONDER. Both the absolute (rate difference) and relative (rate ratio and 95% confidence intervals) changes were calculated to quantify the magnitude of change using the expanded definition of liver-related mortality. Result: Using the expanded definition including secondary liver cancer and according to UCOD data, we identified 68,037 liver-related deaths among people aged 20 years and above in 2008 (29 per 100,000) and this increased to 90,635 in 2018 (33 per 100,000), a 13% increase from 2008 to 2018. However, according to MCOD data, the number of deaths was 113,219 (48 per 100,000) in 2008 and increased to 161,312 (58 per 100,000) in 2018, indicating a 20% increase. The increase according to MCOD was mainly due to increase in alcoholic liver disease and secondary liver cancer (liver metastasis) for each age group and hepatitis C virus (HCV) and primary liver cancer among decedents aged 65–74 years. Conclusion: The direction of mortality change (increasing or decreasing) was similar in UCOD and MCOD data in most etiologies and sequelae, except secondary liver cancer. However, the extent of change differed between UCOD and MCOD data.

CHANGES OF MORTALITY AND RATE OF AGING IN THE SECOND HALF OF 20TH CENTURY IN RUSSIA

Introduction. The deepening of medical and demographic problems associated with the sharp aging of the population is an obstacle to the effective socio-economic development of countries, determining the increased interest in the problem of aging. The aim of the study is to study the features and causes of changes in age mortality in Russia of the twentieth century. Material and methods. Used a table of survival for the 1960-2000 years for Russia to calculate the components of the formula of Gompertz, the intensity of mortality and its increments, using the Excel program, and developed the computer program “Aging of populations»; the adequacy of the calculated (according to the Gompertz formula) and true mortality rate was estimated by the correlation coefficient (“r”). Results. The data obtained clearly show the presence of 4 stages of mortality change: reduction of child mortality; increased mortality of working age (20-65 years); the same mortality of retirement ages (65-85 years); increased mortality in the ages of long-livers (from 85-90 years). Discussion. It can be concluded that the improvement of medical and social care for children and pensioners reduces child mortality and produces the phenomenon of “delayed mortality” of pensioners: reducing the intensity of mortality (the rate of aging) in this age period. The latter leads to the phenomenon of inversion of total mortality for ages of long-livers (from reduced to increased). Use instead of overall intensity of mortality of its increment leads to the conclusion however, that the decrease in the rate of ageing for the ages of centenarians persists. For working person age mortality is increasing, which is obviously due to the increasing stress and environmental difficulties of modern cities. During the pension period, mortality rates are equalized for all studied historical periods. The reduction of the external component of mortality of the Gompertz formula makes the graph more linear over a longer age period (the contribution of the external component of Makeham, the constant, to the exponential component of biological aging, decreases). Conclusion. The detected trends in mortality indicate the direction of preventive and socio-medical impact on the health of the population.

MALTHUS AND CHINA

ABSTRACTT. R. Malthus was deeply interested in how his principle of population operated in societies distant to, and different from, his own. In this respect, China served as an intriguing case, already famous in his own time for its large and dense population and the central regulation of a closed economy. Malthus drew on both centuries-old Jesuit material and recent accounts from the Macartney embassy to the Qianlong emperor to assess its past and present food–land–population dynamics. This article explores Malthus's interest in China in the context of British public and private commercial interest in opening its trade, not least interest from his own East India Company. Historiographically, Malthus's China has been critiqued as an early rendition of orientalist demographic transition, posing a dichotomy of East/West fertility and mortality change. In disagreement with this interpretation, this article argues Malthus's key distinction was not East/West but Old World/New World.

Analysis of Mortality Change Rate from Temperature in Summer by Age, Occupation, Household Type, and Chronic Diseases in 229 Korean Municipalities from 2007–2016

This study analyzed mortality change rate (MCR: daily change rate of mortality at a given temperature per average summer mortality) for 229 municipalities in Korea considering age, occupation, household type, chronic diseases, and regional temperature distribution. We found that the MCR for heat wave differs depending on socioeconomic factors and the temperature distribution in the region. The MCRs for the elderly (≥65 years of age), outdoor workers, one-person households, and chronic disease patients start to increase at lower temperatures and react more sensitively to temperature than others. For the socioeconomic factors considered in this study, occupation was found to be the most significant factor for the MCR differences (outdoor workers 1.17 and others 1.10 above 35 °C, p < 0.01). The MCRs of elderly outdoor workers increased consistently with temperature, while the MCRs of younger outdoor workers decreased at 33 °C, the heat wave warning level in Korea. The MCRs in lower temperature regions start to increase at 28 °C, whereas the MCRs start to increase at 30 °C in higher temperature regions. The results of this study suggest that heat wave policies should be based on contextualized impacts considering age, occupation, household type, chronic disease, and regional temperature distribution.

Advancing front of old-age human survival

Old-age mortality decline has driven recent increases in lifespans, but there is no agreement about trends in the age pattern of old-age deaths. Some argue that old-age deaths should become compressed at advanced ages, others argue that old-age deaths should become more dispersed with age, and yet others argue that old-age deaths are consistent with little change in dispersion. However, direct analysis of old-age deaths presents unusual challenges: Death rates at the oldest ages are always noisy, published life tables must assume an asymptotic age pattern of deaths, and the definition of “old-age” changes as lives lengthen. Here we use robust percentile-based methods to overcome some of these challenges and show, for five decades in 20 developed countries, that old-age survival follows an advancing front, like a traveling wave. The front lies between the 25th and 90th percentiles of old-age deaths, advancing with nearly constant long-term shape but annual fluctuations in speed. The existence of this front leads to several predictions that we verify, e.g., that advances in life expectancy at age 65 y are highly correlated with the advance of the 25th percentile, but not with distances between higher percentiles. Our unexpected result has implications for biological hypotheses about human aging and for future mortality change.

An Advancing Front of Old Age Human Survival

Old age mortality decline has driven recent increases in lifespans, but there is no agreement about trends in the age-pattern of old deaths. Some hypotheses argue that old-age deaths should have become compressed at high ages, others that old-age deaths should have become more dispersed with age, and yet others are consistent with little change in dispersion. However, direct analyses of old-age deaths presents unusual challenges: death rates at the oldest ages are always noisy; published life tables must assume an asymptotic age pattern of deaths; and the definition of “old age” changes as lives lengthen. Here we use robust percentile-based methods to overcome these challenges and show, for 5 decades in 20 developed countries, that old-age survival follows an advancing front, like a traveling wave. The front lies between the 25th and 90th percentiles of old-age deaths, advancing with nearly constant long-term shape but annual fluctuations in speed. The existence of this front leads to several predictions that we verify, e.g., that advances in life expectancy at age 65 are highly correlated with the advance of the 25th percentile, but not with distances between higher percentiles. Our unexpected result has implications for biological hypotheses about human aging, and for future mortality change.