New Findings On Secular Trends In Nutrition And Mortality: Some Implications For Population Theory Presented by Hui Huang Robert William Fogel
Jan 17, 2016
New Findings On Secular Trends In Nutrition And Mortality: Some
Implications For Population Theory
Presented by Hui Huang
Robert William Fogel
IntroductionIntegration of
Biomedical techniques
with Economic techniques
Four parts of discussion
1. s2: the evolution of thought on the secular decline in mortality
2. s3: from famines to chronic malnutrition
3. s4: new theory about food supply and population equilibrium
4. s5: implication of the theory for current population issues
The evolution of thought on, and knowledge of, the secular decline in
mortality
Section 2
Malthusian Theory of Population
1798 Periodical mortality crises were created by
the pressure of population on food supplies Mortality rate declines when the pressure
was relieved Mortality decline were temporary
Initial efforts to explain the secular decline in mortality
Relationship between food supply and mortality rates
Focused on abstracts of parish records collected by government
Explanations: public health reforms
advances in medical knowledge
…etc
McKeown’s challenge to consensus view
Consensus explanation: changes in technology and public health reforms
McKeown: improved nutrition
Set off an extensive controversy
Crisis mortality and famines
Mid-1980s: debate over mortality crises Crisis mortality was the main source of
the high mortality rate?
the famines were the source of the crises?
Measuring the extent and significance of chronic malnutrition
Section 3
Energy cost accounting
Basal metabolic rate (BMR) Energy requirement beyond maintenance Sources of estimates of mean caloric
consumptions
national food balance sheets
household survey
food allotments in various institutions...
Estimating the levels and distributions of caloric consumption in Britain and France near the end of the Ancien R
egime
The implication of stature and body mass indexes for the
explanation of secular trends in morbidity and mortality
Implications for population theory
Section 4
How variations in body size brought the population and the food supply into balance and determined the level of mortality
The nature of European famines
Man-made rather than natural disaster.
Contribution of improved nutrition and health to the growth of labor productivity
Conclusions and implications
Section 5
The principal findings
Crisis mortality accounted for a small share The famines were man-made Proper government policy could not have
eliminated the chronic malnutrition. Improvements in nutritional status explains
much of the decline in mortality rates. Stunting increases mortality rates
Implication for current policy
Third World Highly developed countries Food supply