Paper Example on Life Expectancy: Understanding Mortality Rates & Demographics

Introduction

Bourbeau and Ouellette (2016) defined life expectancy as a statistical approximation of the average amount of time people in particular region or country expect to live, depending on their year of birth, their current age, and other demographic characteristics, such as gender. Demographic researchers also determine the life expectancy of a country or a particular place depending on its mortality rates computed for a predetermined period. It is essential to understand the fact that life expectancy is an average; hence, some people tend to live longer than the estimated time, while others die early before reaching the approximated age (Trovato & Odynak, 2011). Canada provides the best example of a country that made significant progress in considerably enhancing survival and longevity over the last nine decades. This remarkable progress played a vital role in establishing Canada among today's group of countries with low mortality (Decady & Greenberg, 2014). This paper aims to provide a comprehensive analysis of change in life expectancy over time in Canada. The research describes the reasons that contributed to this change, discusses factors that accounted for limited changes in the life expectancy of the aboriginals, and analyzes the impact of immigrants on Canadians life expectancy. Lastly, the paper evaluates how the current opioid crisis limits life expectancy in Canada.

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Reasons that Contributed to Change in Life Expectancy in Canada

According to Trovato and Odynak (2011), it is always common to read in numerous articles reporting that people living in developed countries tend to live longer and that a large number of Canadians live up to 90 or even more than 100 years of age. Data collected and analyzed from the 2011 Census identified centenarians as the second rapidly increasing age group in Canada (Diaconu, Ouellette, Camarda, & Bourbeau, 2016). Many Canadians continue to live long past 90 years due to the remarkable transformation taken by their government and other stakeholders to improve survival and longevity across the country. The last census, conducted in 2016, showed that life expectancy at birth in Canada averaged at 82.47 years (Statistica, 2017). These statistics represented a remarkable improvement of approximately a year when compared to 81.7 years recorded in 2011 (Decady & Greenberg, 2014). The 2011 Census results also represented a notable increase of 24.6 years since the last 90 years in 1921. Approximately half of the improvements in life expectancy in Canada took place between 1921 and 1951 (Bourbeau and Ouellette, 2016). This considerable changes in life expectancy occurred due to multiple reasons, as discussed below;

Changes in Mortality Rates

According to Diaconu et al. (2016), changes in the number of people dying in a particular region or country in the predetermined period have a far-reaching impact on its overall life expectancy. An increase in infants and adolescents dying in a given country, for instance, has a resultant effect of lowering life expectancy. On the other hand, a decrease in the overall number of people dying during their early ages culminates into a higher life expectancy. Canada provides a hypothetical example of a country that experienced these remarkable changes. Decady and Greenberg (2014) divided the period ranging from 1921 to 2011 in three groups, each averaging to a total of 30 years to understand how changes in mortality rates affected life expectancy in Canada. Comparative studies indicate that life expectancy in Canada increased considerably during the first 30 years, which ranged from 1921 to 1951. This period also recorded the most significant improvement in terms of life expectancy at birth, which stood at 11.3 years (Bourbeau and Ouellette, 2016). This improvement was a result of reduced infant mortality across Canada.

On the other hand, Canada recorded a comparatively smaller improvement of 7.1 years in the period ranging from 1951 to 1981, with a gain of 6.2 years from 1981 to 2011 (Decady & Greenberg, 2014). Research shows that most of the increases in the life expectancy of Canadians over the last nine decades were a result of a continuous decline in premature death, which refers to the mortality cases of people who are below 75 years. Also, figure 1 below indicates that the life expectancy of Canadians at birth increased significantly from 1921 to 1951 due to reduced deaths among infants and children when evaluating gains in the three age groups (Bourbeau and Ouellette, 2016). This assertion implies that approximately 6.7 years out of the 11.3 years gained from 1921 to 1951 were as a result of tremendous improvements made in terms of infant and child mortality rates. In this case, an infant refers to a person below the age of 1, whereas a child is an individual whose age ranges from 1 to 4 years (Diaconu et al., 2016). More declines the number of infants and children dying in Canada from 1951 to 1981 accounted for approximately 2.7 years from a cumulative sum of 7.1 years gained in terms of life expectancy. Lastly, the period between 1981 and 2011 accounted for an improvement of 0.5 years or six months out of the previous 6.2 extra years. Reduction in the number of deaths among people aged between 5 to 74 years was another remarkable factor that contributes to improved life expectancy in Canada between 1921 and 2011(Decady & Greenberg, 2014), as illustrated in the figure below

Improvements in the Canadian Public Health Sector

According to Klenk, Keil, Jaensch, Christiansen, and Nagel (2016), Canada made significant advances in its public health sector that led to improved life expectancy. First, the Canadian public health sector introduced child immunization, which played a vital role in preventing infectious diseases among Canadians. Some of the most aggressive communicable diseases prevented through vaccination, included tetanus, tuberculosis, measles, rubella, meningitis, and diphtheria (Diaconu et al., 2016). Historically, these diseases accounted for a considerable amount of mortality cases in the country. However, their successful prevention meant that Canadians could live much longer than initially anticipated. Secondly, Canada realized multiple life-altering and improving discoveries, such as insulin and penicillin, which, in turn, contributed effective management of non-communicable diseases, diseases including diabetes (Klenk et al., 2016). Proper management of diabetes was a remarkable step towards increasing life expectancy through reduced suffering and deaths.

Thirdly, the Canadian Government, in collaboration with other stakeholders, including its public health sector, undertook new approaches in health promotion, disease prevention, and community advocacy to improve the health of its residents (Diaconu et al., 2016). Also, Canada developed new policies to ensure that it adequately catered for the health needs of its population. For instance, the country launched a public health insurance program that allows its citizens to access more services freely. For example, all territories and provinces in Canada began providing free emergency medical services regardless of patients having a government health insurance card to reduce the number of people dying from emergencies, such as accidents and injuries. The launch of broad social programs also played a vital role in improving the health status of the elderly members of society (Bourbeau & Ouellette, 2016). However, the country did not realize a remarkable improvement in life expectancy for people above 75 years of age over the last nine decades.

Fourthly, Canada made a massive investment in research and development to identify and diagnose different diseases while providing appropriate preventive and eradication measures. Decady and Greenberg (2014) added that Canada experienced continuous changes in life expectancy concerning the causes of death in the last century. For example, the decline in the deaths resulting from blood circulatory diseases, including heart disease, contributed to a remarkable improvement in life expectancy. The period between 1951 and 1981 recorded a decline in infectious and parasitic diseases, which, in turn, accounted for increased life expectancy. Consequently, survival from contagious diseases, such as cancer, accounted for a gain of 0.8 years, which represents a total of 10 months, increment in the life expectancy of Canadians from 1981 to 2011 (Klenk et al., 2016).). Additional gains in life expectancy occurred as a result of a continuous decline in deaths caused by violence and accident.

Decady and Greenberg (2014) contended that these accidents reduced due to appropriately planned and executed public health campaigns aimed at creating awareness among populations alongside the introduction of new traffic policies such as mandatory use of seat belts. However, Canada recorded a minute increment in the number of deaths as a result of infectious diseases from 1981 to 2011 (Eggleston & Fuchs, 2012). The increase in the national burden of contagious diseases during this period accounted for approximately 0.1 years decrease in the life expectancy of Canadians. Therefore, infectious diseases remain a critical challenge to the potential improvement of the number of years lived in Canada. The country is increasingly facing the challenge of preventing newly emerging infections alongside the re-emergence the previously controlled non-communicable diseases, such as tuberculosis and malaria (Bergeron-Boucher et al., 2015), as illustrated in the figure below.

An Overview of Life Expectancy among the Canadian Aboriginal Population

According to Bourbeau and Ouellette (2016), aboriginal Canadians are the indigenous people who not only inhabited but also live in Canada and within its boundaries. There are three different groups of aboriginals in Canada, including the First Nations, the Metis, and the Inuit. Research indicates that the Inuit have the lowest estimated life expectancy of about 64 years among men and 73 years for women (Statistics Canada, n.d). The population of the First Nations and Metis aboriginals, on the other hand, is similar in terms of life expectancy. The average life expectancy for men among these two groups ranges from 73-74 years among men, while women expect to live from 78 to 80 years (Statistics Canada, n.d). Projections of life expectancy among the population of aboriginals indicate an average increment of about one to two years from the life expectancy recorded in 2001. These results transform into a limited change in the life expectancy of the aboriginal population when compared to the entire Canadian community.

Reasons why Life Expectancy of Aboriginal Population Did Not Change Much

Many researchers have a keen interest in understanding the demographics of the aboriginal population in Canada. However, most of these scholars seek to understand the reasons behind this group of Canadians experiencing a limited change in terms of life expectancy. First, research conducted by Richmond and Cook (2016) established that the Canadian aboriginal population has multiple health and social inequities that prevent them from having adequate access to high-quality healthcare. Lack of access to improved healthcare implies that many aboriginals die from different death-causing incidents, including infectious diseases. Canada has limited healthcare policies that specifically address the growing health needs of its aboriginal population. Currently, the Indian Act of 1876 is the online practical and active nation-...