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The increase in lifespan is more due to childhood mortality falling sharply in those years. I've always found average lifespan to be problematic. Most of the
by ivl 7y ago
The increase in lifespan is more due to childhood mortality falling sharply in those years.
I've always found average lifespan to be problematic. Most of the deaths weren't from 65 being the age where old age started to kill. It was on account of how many more infants and children started reaching 5 on account of vaccines.
- joombaga 7y agoTo flip this completely on its head, I'd be interested to see how childhood mortality rates have been affected by major events in plastics.
- chrisco255 7y agoAgreed child mortality was a big factor, but so too, was vaccinations and better hygiene (via running water, electricity, food handling, etc). Found a statistic that states 46% of all deaths in 1910 were due to infectious diseases and now that number has dropped by an order of magnitude: https://demography.cpc.unc.edu/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/ID-Mortality-1900-v-2010-e1402580332746.png https://demography.cpc.unc.edu/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/ID... The ironic thing is, that single-use plastics play a huge role in maintaining sterile environments in hospitals and we'd be much worse off without them.