Mortality is one of the measures of epidemiology that describes the number of deaths in a certain population or which measure the number of people out of 1000 who die because of specific diseases within a certain population group. On the other hand, morbidity is the rate of occurrences of diseases within a given population and which is measured in terms of the rate of such individuals falling ill due to such diseases as well as the degree of vulnerability of the members of the population to contracting certain illnesses within a specific period of time.
Although Australia fairs quite well in terms of health for its inhabitants and the availability of highly organized and effective health systems, it has not been completely exempted from situation of some group within its population being faced with the risk of morbidity and early mortality. Today, a number of factors can be attributed to the incidences of morbidity and early mortality as far as the Australian population is concerned. For instance, one factor that has been earmarked as the greatest single cause of death among individuals in Australia is the Coronary Heart Diseases(C HD).
According to Dobson et al (2008), Coronary Heart Diseases are most common in the eastern region of Australia which is mainly inhabited by individuals who hails from fairy poor social economic backgrounds. According to the latter, it is in this region where most deaths related to CHD have been reported in the recent past. Deaths related to coronary heart diseases are greatly affected by the variations in individuals’ way of life. For instance, cases of CHD mortalities have in the past been reported to reduce with the reduction in smoking among the populations of eastern Australia, as well as reduction in the amount of tar that is clear evidence that smoking, especially of cigarettes with high tar concentration contributes significantly to the coronary heart disease cases in eastern Australia. As a result, it increases the rate of CHD related deaths. In addition, individuals who had regularly consumed butter had a higher risk of being affected by CHD relative to those who used margarine (Dobson et al, 2008). According to the latter, individuals are subjected to massive daily stress due to poor living conditions as well as being subjected to unfavorable living conditions. Such factor as imprisonment and jailing, physical torture under captivity and lack of freedom increased the vulnerability of individual’s to coronary heart diseases, mental illnesses and stroke. As a result, the rate of early deaths among the members of this population group is quite high (Pubmed, 2007).
According to Australian institute of health and welfare, (2009), Coronary Heart Diseases and related death cases are typically high among the social- economically disadvantaged population (individuals living in abject poverty, low education and joblessness). According to the latter, this situation is evident especially in Eastern Australia; a factor that is greatly associated with poor life styles and deplorable conditions in which members of these populations live in. Individuals with poor social-economic background are at a greater health risk and highly vulnerable to major early death causing diseases and were at a lesser position to take adequate precautionary measure rather than take any such measures at all and did not have the ability to recognize early symptoms of the diseases hence placing them at a very risky state. Moreover, depending on the different lifestyles that such individuals exhibited they were more likely to expose themselves to health risking behaviors and activities hence the charges of early mortality is likely to be high among this group of Australians (Australian institute of health and welfare, 2009, Pubmed, 2007).
In addition, Australians who are exposed to problematic lifestyle due to low level background financial status, education inadequacies and conditions of joblessness tend to have high level of morbidity and mortality rates relative to those who are more economically well up and high social status with better lifestyles (Australia institute of health and welfare, 2006).
Life expectancy is the average number of years that an individual is expected to last from the time of birth to the time he or she dies and largely depends on a score of factors which are mostly embedded on the living conditions that an individual is exposed to throughout his or her life. As a result, life expectancy varies among individual’s population, races and nations. Generally, life expectancy in Australia is fairly high perhaps due to the good living conditions among the majority of the Australian population. According to the Shanahan (2008) Australia ranks second in terms of life expectancy a factor that has been greatly attributed to the massive streamlining of the Australia’s healthy systems that has led to great efficacy and remarkable achievement in reducing the Australians’ risk to terminal diseases such as cancer, coronary heart diseases, stroke and diabetes, which previously form the major cause of early mortality among the Australian populations.
Nevertheless, a close diagnosis of the Australian population reveals existence of significant variations in life expectancy among the various groups that forms the populations. However the variation is mainly exhibited by the minority groups which are rather disadvantaged in terms of welfare and health issues. The difference in life expectancy in Australia is evident mainly between the indigenous population that constitutes the Aboriginals and the Torres straight islanders and the rest of the Australian population. Comparatively the members of the indigenous population tend to have a much lower life relative to the other Australians. In fact an Australian born male today has an approximated life expectancy of 79 years while his female counterparts would expect to live for 84 years. It is only Japanese who have a higher life expectancy with a current Japanese baby born expecting to live for up to 82.2 years.
According to the estimations provided by the Australian institute of health and welfare 2008, the life expectancy of the indigenous Australians who happened to be born between 1996 and 2001 were approximately 59 and 64 years at birth for males and females respectively a life expectancy that is far much lower than that of the rest Australian population. In fact the latter trails the rest of the Australian individuals who share this birthday date by close to 17 years. In facts, the differences in life expectancy between the two groups of Australia is so large that it has since become a matter of public concern with the government prioritizing enactment of measures to lessen it. According to the Australian institute of health and welfare, 2000, a range of health factor and differences were a clear evidence of discrepancy in life expectancy between the indigenous and non indigenous Australians.
According to the latter, the discrepancy in the life expectancy is mainly as a result of initial disadvantages that the members of this group are faced with and which comes early in life and continues through out their life at times leading to early health complication, high mortality rate and notably shorter lives the disadvantages most of which are social economic in nature. It is evident that the overall, social economic status of the Aboriginals and the Torres strait islanders is much poorer, compared to the overall population of Australia who fair much better in terms of economic wellbeing and good standards of living. It is this inequality therefore that is attributed to the disparity in life expectancy between the two groups (Australia institute of health and welfare, 2008) as a result, the indigenous population is constituted by mainly young individuals due to high morbidity among the members of the population as well as the high early mortality rates that compounds the low life expectancy among the aboriginals and the Torres strait islanders.
According to indigenous Australian health report, (2008) the life expectancy levels among the indigenous population were approximated to fall 20 years lower than that of the rest Australian population. Among the factor that were attributed to low life expectancy levels among the members of this group includes low economic status and poor living conditions, poor health and high vulnerability to terminal diseases, high morbidity rates and children being born with less than norm weight (Australia institute of health and welfare, 2006).
The rural populations of Australian are likely to have lower life expectancy level than those who inhabits the metropolitan areas of Australia. One of the factors that have been attributed to this aspect is the vulnerability of individual to fatal diseases. Although, individuals in the urban areas of Australia some times suffers from such diseases as circulation ailments, cancers, respiratory infections, digestive disorders physical injuries and cases of poisoning, health problems are more common in the upcountry or rural areas of Australia than in the metropolitan regions. As a result morbidity and mortality among the rural and relatively poor Australian population is higher compared to the urban population, condition that can be related to the poor living status (Government of Western Australia, Departments of Health, 2009).
For instance, it has been found that individuals who hail in the rural and remote parts of Australia (western region) are more vulnerable to chronic and communicable diseases that the urban dwellers. Similarly, the further the place is from the urban centers the higher the more the likelihood of individuals suffering from diseases that leads to their hospitalization and early deaths. Consequently, death rate in the up countries is much higher in the rural areas of Australia relative to the metropolitan region with the range of illnesses and overall causes of death widening as one drift away from the urban hood. An interesting finding is that men in the rural areas of Australia are more likely to take their own life than their counterparts in the urban areas, perhaps due to the poor living conditions and the resulting frustrations of life. As a result the rural populations of Australia have a higher tendency of dying early than the metropolitan ones with the life expectancy of the poor rural inhabitants trailing that of the metropolitan population by close to four years. The high health problems that leads to high morbidity and mortality rates and the subsequent lower life expectancy of the rural population in Australia is mainly as a result of the deplorable living conditions that rural people are subjected to characterized by abject poverty and extensive joblessness, psychological stress that accrues as a result of the population being socially and physically segregated from their metropolitan counterparts, dangers that the rural jobs poses to the workers due to poor working conditions and the inaccessibility to quality health services by the rural population because such are either unavailable or they simply cannot afford them (Government of Western Australia, Departments of Health, 2009).
Bibliography
- Australia institute of health and welfare 2008, Indigenous life expectancy.
- Australia institute of health and welfare 2006, Health inequalities monitoring.
- Dobson, et al 2008, Coronary Heart Disease, Mortality Trends and Related Factors in Australia: international journal of Cardiovascular medicine, surgery, pathology and pharmacology, 72(1-2), 23-28.
- Government of Western Australia, 2009).The Extents of Rural Health in Western Australia: Department Of Public Health.
- Pubmed 2007,. Factors associated with mortality in a cohort of Australian prisonersWeb.
- Shanahan, L 2008, ‘Australia now second in life expectancy stakes’, The Age, P.1.