Search results

On average, Americans die earlier than Canadians. An estimate based on comparing the number of actual US deaths with the number that would have obtained had Canadian age‐ and sex‐specific death rates applied to the US population shows an excess number of US deaths in 1998 amounting approximately to 253,000. Excess US deaths were especially numerous among older women, middle‐aged men, and nonwhites. Circulatory diseases were the major cause of excess deaths. Prevalences of two of the major risk factors for circulatory deaths—smoking and hypertension—were higher in Canada than in the US. But obesity was higher in the US, suggesting a likely important role that obesity plays in higher mortality in the US relative to Canada. Comparisons of the level, age pattern, and causes of US and Canadian mortality, however, raise more questions than currently available data can answer.

"The World Population Dynamics Report 2002 offers a comprehensive overview and analysis of demographic changes worldwide. As neither an increase nor decrease in numbers alone poses the greatest challenge, the report focuses on the dynamics of population processes, including a society's unprecedented growth or aging, its rapid urbanisation or rising mortality rates due to HIV/AIDS. Beyond the pace of change, it is the growing divergence in demographic developments that places additional demands on societies. Increasingly, trends in neighbouring countries and regions are diverging significantly or even following distinctly different patterns of growth or decline. This mandates increasingly complex coping strategies at regional, national and even local levels." (author's abstract)