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The Continuing Epidemiological Transition in Sub-Saharan Africa A Workshop Summary (2012) / Chapter Skim
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2 The Changing Context of the Transition in sub-Saharan Africa
Pages 4-5

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From page 4...
... Kuate Defo provided descriptions and explanations of epidemiological change in Africa over the last 60 years, and he discussed three frameworks for analyzing changing patterns of population health and mortality: the demographic transition, the epidemiological transition, and the health transition frameworks. He also described a detailed analysis of trends in health, disease, and mortality in African regions and countries from 1950 to 2010; the analysis was based on existing literature and time-series data on mortality statistics and characteristics involving 55 African countries derived from databases of major international organizations.1 Defo presented some relatively simple methods for analyzing changes and developing quantitative indicators to test how well the demographic transition, epidemiological transition, and health transition frameworks apply to the patterns seen in Africa over the past half dozen decades.
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From page 5...
... a rapid decline in mortality -- specifically, declines in infant mortality and increases in life expectancy -- throughout the continent from the 1950s through the 1990s, a period during which communicable diseases were responsible for most deaths in Africa; (3) growing rates of adult mortality since the 1990s, which have been mostly ascribed to HIV/AIDS and its comorbidities and which have played a major role in reversing the trend of declining mortality, interrupting improvements in life expectancy, and reversing gender differences in life expectancies in several countries with highest prevalence of HIV/AIDS because of the disease's disproportionate impact on women; and (4)
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Key Terms

  • health transition
  • epidemiological transition
  • transition frameworks
  • population trends
  • demographic transition

  • life expectancy
  • five mortality
  • kuate defo
  • declining mortality
  • defo provided

  • world population
  • disproportionate impact
  • half dozen
  • africa development
  • existing literature

  • detailed analysis
  • life expectancies
  • changing patterns
  • epidemiological change
  • developing world

  • frameworks apply
  • growing rates
  • rapid decline
  • quantitative indicators
  • mortality decline

  • middle africa
  • databases include
  • infant mortality
  • understanding population
  • population health


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