Crisis prolongs life
Nikolay Podorvanyuk, "Newspaper.Ru»During the financial crisis, the mortality rate in developed countries is falling.
The reasons for this lie on the surface: people have less money for alcohol, tobacco and delicious, but harmful food, they sit without work and enjoy communicating with family and friends, and also drive less and get into accidents.
For more than a year now, the world has been in a state of so-called financial crisis, or, to put it another way, economic recession. If you listen to most of the conversations on this topic, you get the impression that the crisis has caused some global problems: there is no money, there is no work, everything is bad and so on.
However, this situation also has its advantages, which sociologist Stephen Bezruchka from the School of Social Health at the University of Washington found out. The results of his work are published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal.
The scientist studied mortality in different countries in the XX century during periods of great economic turmoil and came to the conclusion that during the economic downturn in developed countries, mortality falls.
The dependence of the average life expectancy (in years) in different countries of the world on GDP (in thousands of dollars).
Countries with a long life expectancy with a GDP of more than $25 thousand. –
these are, in particular, Japan, France, Italy, Great Britain, USA,
Norway, the USA and Ireland have the largest GDP (rusyouth.ru ).
A study of the mortality of the population during economic cataclysms led Bezruchka to an unexpected but logical conclusion, which is that wealth does not always lead to health. For example, in the USA, where GDP is one of the highest in the world, life expectancy is lower than in a number of countries with a smaller GDP and in some countries that are close to the poor in terms of GDP.
The study says that unemployment can have a bad effect on people's health, but during economic downturns, a person rarely has the opportunity to overuse alcohol and tobacco, as well as suffer from overeating. Of course, such "abstinence" cannot but have a beneficial effect on health. In addition, as the unemployment rate increases, people spend more time with friends and family, as well as with their children. A person communicates, receives positive emotions, which also leads to an overall decrease in mortality.
Another factor affecting a person's life expectancy is a car. In the conditions of financial crisis and unemployment, a person no longer needs to go to work every day, as well as spend money on gasoline for his car. As a result, a person is less likely to get into an accident, as a result of which he may die or get seriously injured. In addition, in the absence of a car, a person walks more (rather than sitting in one place), which is good for health.
The author of the study suggests that the current global financial crisis demonstrates the influence of all these factors.
"The current economic recession may represent a global incentive to revise values in society through income redistribution, as it was during the Great Depression 80 years ago," Bezruchka writes in his article. "Global inequality in human health is an unprecedented extreme, and now it would be possible to benefit from the downturn in the economy by reducing the gap in the health sector."
As an example, Bezruchka relies on the works of the 1998 Nobel Prize in Economics laureate, Indian economist Amartya Sena. In one of his works, he, in particular, compared countries that have achieved high life expectancy in different ways: some due to high economic growth (such as South Korea and Taiwan), others due to appropriate health care reforms (Sri Lanka). In another paper, Sen cites the example of Great Britain as a country that achieved high growth in improving health in the 20th century precisely during the recession in the economy.
In conclusion of his article, Stephen Bezruchka says that few people in the world understand the positive impact of economic downturns, and this is a big problem.
"If we recognized that economic growth could harm our health, then we could consider ways to limit the use of excess values and redistribute resources in society for our common good," the author concludes.
Portal "Eternal youth" http://vechnayamolodost.ru01.09.2009