Eileen M. Crimmins | |
---|---|
Academic background | |
Education | Ph.D. in Demography |
Alma mater | University of Pennsylvania |
Academic work | |
Discipline | Sociology |
Sub-discipline | Social gerontology |
Institutions | USC Davis School of Gerontology |
Eileen M. Crimmins is the AARP Chair in Gerontology at the USC Davis School of Gerontology of the University of Southern California. Her work focuses on the connections between socioeconomic factors and life expectancy and other health outcomes. [1] [2]
After completing her Ph.D. in Demography from the University of Pennsylvania,Crimmins held positions in population sciences and sociology at the University of Illinois at Chicago. In 1982,she joined the faculty at USC,being promoted to full professor in 1992 and being named director of the USC/UCLA Center on Biodemography and Population Health in 1999. She was elected to the National Academy of Medicine in 2012 and the National Academy of Sciences in 2016. [3]
Crimmins was one of the initial researchers to combine indicators of disability,disease and mortality to examine trends and differentials in healthy life expectancy. This work has been important because it clarifies how improvements in life expectancy can be accompanied by deterioration in population health –e.g. the percent of the population with a disability or the prevalence of heart disease [4] Such insights are essential for understanding the implications of changes in technology and health behaviors for future demands for health care. This work has also clarified the complexity in change in health,e.g. how there can be an increase in the prevalence of major diseases at the same time as there is decreasing disability.
Among many committees and journal boards,she served on the National Academy of Sciences's Panel on Race/Ethnic Health Differentials and was Associate Editor of the Journal of Gerontology . [5] She is the editor-in-chief of Biodemography &Social Biology . [6]
Her 1985 book,The Fertility Revolution:A Supply-Demand Analysis, written with University of Southern California economist Richard Easterlin,was the subject of at least five major reviews,and called "well written" and having "important implications for public policymakers--and their advisers--in the developing countries." [7] Their book was an attempt to find "empirical research to test" the "supply-demand theory of fertility determination." Their work provided the models used in further research (see,for instance,Shireen J. Jejeebhoy,"Women's Status and Fertility," Studies in Family Planning,22.4 (Jul 1991),pp. 217–230).
Crimmins was one of several editors who published Determining Health Expectancies, (2003 ISBN 978-0-470-84397-0) which addressed "the important question of whether or not we are exchanging longer life for poorer health." The book was based on the research of REVES (Network on Health Expectancy). Most recently, she has co-edited two volumes on aging, Longer Life and Healthy Aging and Human Longevity, Individual Life Duration, and the Growth of the Oldest-old Population (both published by Springer in 2006).
Her work has also been important in clarifying how health differentials in the population arise, and change with age. [8] Crimmins has been a pioneer in the use of the healthy life expectancy approach defined by disease or risk factor states. [9] [10] For instance, men have a higher prevalence of heart disease than women, which comes from their earlier rates of onset of heart disease; however, looking at life cycles of men and women, the length of time spent with heart disease is longer for women. [11]
Other work has shown that women’s longer life with cognitive impairment comes largely from their longer life rather than from more cognitive loss at a given age. [12] Work on race and education differences in life expectancy has emphasized a life cycle approach to health differentials; the earlier “aging” of the disadvantaged occurs through the earlier onset of health conditions among persons of lower SES leading to shorter lives and fewer healthy years. [13] The same approach has been applied to risk factors to show how obesity is related to lower active life expectancy among older people 70, but not to total life expectancy. [14]
Human life expectancy is a statistical measure of the estimate of the average remaining years of life at a given age. The most commonly used measure is life expectancy at birth. This can be defined in two ways. Cohort LEB is the mean length of life of a birth cohort and can be computed only for cohorts born so long ago that all their members have died. Period LEB is the mean length of life of a hypothetical cohort assumed to be exposed, from birth through death, to the mortality rates observed at a given year. National LEB figures reported by national agencies and international organizations for human populations are estimates of period LEB.
Longevity may refer to especially long-lived members of a population, whereas life expectancy is defined statistically as the average number of years remaining at a given age. For example, a population's life expectancy at birth is the same as the average age at death for all people born in the same year.
Gerontology is the study of the social, cultural, psychological, cognitive, and biological aspects of aging. The word was coined by Ilya Ilyich Mechnikov in 1903, from the Greek γέρων (gérōn), meaning "old man", and -λογία (-logía), meaning "study of". The field is distinguished from geriatrics, which is the branch of medicine that specializes in the treatment of existing disease in older adults. Gerontologists include researchers and practitioners in the fields of biology, nursing, medicine, criminology, dentistry, social work, physical and occupational therapy, psychology, psychiatry, sociology, economics, political science, architecture, geography, pharmacy, public health, housing, and anthropology.
Population ageing is an increasing median age in a population because of declining fertility rates and rising life expectancy. Most countries have rising life expectancy and an ageing population, trends that emerged first in developed countries but are now seen in virtually all developing countries. In most developed countries, the phenomenon of population aging began to gradually emerge in the late 19th century. The aging of the world population occurred in the late 20th century, with the proportion of people aged 65 and above accounting for 6% of the total population. This reflects the overall decline in the world's fertility rate at that time. That is the case for every country in the world except the 18 countries designated as "demographic outliers" by the United Nations. The aged population is currently at its highest level in human history. The UN predicts the rate of population ageing in the 21st century will exceed that of the previous century. The number of people aged 60 years and over has tripled since 1950 and reached 600 million in 2000 and surpassed 700 million in 2006. It is projected that the combined senior and geriatric population will reach 2.1 billion by 2050. Countries vary significantly in terms of the degree and pace of ageing, and the UN expects populations that began ageing later will have less time to adapt to its implications.
The USC Leonard Davis School of Gerontology is one of the seventeen academic divisions of the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, focusing on undergraduate and graduate programs in gerontology.
Disability-adjusted life years (DALYs) are a measure of overall disease burden, expressed as the number of years lost due to ill-health, disability, or early death. It was developed in the 1990s as a way of comparing the overall health and life expectancy of different countries.
In demography and medical geography, epidemiological transition is a theory which "describes changing population patterns in terms of fertility, life expectancy, mortality, and leading causes of death." For example, a phase of development marked by a sudden increase in population growth rates brought by improved food security and innovations in public health and medicine, can be followed by a re-leveling of population growth due to subsequent declines in fertility rates. Such a transition can account for the replacement of infectious diseases by chronic diseases over time due to increased life span as a result of improved health care and disease prevention. This theory was originally posited by Abdel Omran in 1971.
Following is a list of topics related to life extension:
A blue zone is a region in the world where people are claimed to have exceptionally long lives beyond the age of 80 due to a lifestyle combining physical activity, low stress, rich social interactions, a local whole-foods diet, and low disease incidence. Examples of blue zones include Okinawa Prefecture, Japan; Nuoro Province, Sardinia, Italy; the Nicoya Peninsula, Costa Rica; and Icaria, Greece. The name "blue zones" derived simply during the original survey by scientists, who "used a blue pen on a map to mark the villages with long-lived population."
Health is the state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being and a positive concept emphasizing social and personal resources, as well as physical capacities. This article lists major topics related to personal health.
Frailty is a common geriatric syndrome that embodies an elevated risk of catastrophic declines in health and function among older adults. Frailty is a condition associated with ageing, and it has been recognized for centuries. It is a marker of a more widespread syndrome of frailty, with associated weakness, slowing, decreased energy, lower activity, and, when severe, unintended weight loss. As a frequent clinical syndrome in the elderly, various health risks are linked to health deterioration and frailty in older age, such as falls, disability, hospitalization, and mortality. Generally, frailty refers to older adults who lose independence. It also links to the experiences of losing dignity due to social and emotional isolation risk. Frailty has been identified as a risk factor for the development of dementia.
Jean-Marie Robine is a French social scientist, who works in the field of demography and gerontology, and is an author and journalist, who is best known as being the co-validator of the longevity of Jeanne Calment, the oldest verified supercentenarian of all time, with whom he collaborated.
Health in England refers to the overall health of the population of England. Despite overall increases in life expectancy in England, the most deprived areas continue to see no change or a decrease in life expectancy. The Blair Government instituted a comprehensive programme to reduce health inequalities in England between 1997 and 2010 focused on reducing geographical inequalities in life expectancy. It was targeted at the Spearhead areas - the 20% of local authorities with the worst health and deprivation indicators. This led to more NHS resources being directed to the most deprived areas. The strategy was associated with a decline in geographical inequalities in life expectancy, reversing a trend which had increased over a long period. However, health inequalities still remain. In 2014 to 2016, the difference in life expectancy between the most and least deprived areas of England was 9.3 years for males and 7.3 years for females.
Ageing is the process of becoming older. The term refers mainly to humans, many other animals, and fungi, whereas for example, bacteria, perennial plants and some simple animals are potentially biologically immortal. In a broader sense, ageing can refer to single cells within an organism which have ceased dividing, or to the population of a species.
Singapore is one of the wealthiest countries in the world, with a gross domestic product (GDP) per capita of more than $57,000. Life expectancy at birth is 82.3 and infant mortality is 2.7 per 1000 live births. The population is ageing and by 2030, 20% will be over 65. However it is estimated that about 85% of those over 65 are healthy and reasonably active. Singapore has a universal health care system.
According to the World Bank income level classification, Portugal is considered to be a high income country. Its population was of 10,283,822 people, by 1 July 2019. WHO estimates that 21.7% of the population is 65 or more years of age (2018), a proportion that is higher than the estimates for the WHO European Region.
The Mexican Health and Aging Study (MHAS), also known by its Spanish name, Estudio Nacional de Salud y Envejecimiento en México, ENASEM, is the first panel study of health and aging in Mexico. The first phase of MHAS was supported by a grant from the MHAS was supported by a grant from the National Institutes of Health/National Institute on Aging. The study was a collaborative effort among researchers from the Universities of Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Wisconsin in the U.S., and the Instituto Nacional de Estadística, Geografia e Informática.
Brunei's healthcare system is managed by the Brunei Ministry of Health and funded by the General Treasury. It consists of around 15 health centers, ten clinics and 22 maternal facilities, considered to be of reasonable standard. There are also two private hospitals. Cardiovascular disease, cancer, and diabetes are the leading cause of death in the country, with life expectancy around 75 years, a vast improvement from 1961. Brunei's human development index (HCI) improved from 0.81 in 2002 to 0.83 in 2021, expanding at an average annual rate of 0.14%. According to the UN's Human Development Report 2020, the HCI for girls in the country is greater than for boys, though aren't enough statistics in Brunei to break down HCI by socioeconomic classes. Brunei is the second country in Southeast Asia after Singapore to be rated 47th out of 189 nations on the UN HDI 2019 and has maintained its position in the Very High Human Development category. Being a culturally taboo subject, the rate of suicide has not been investigated.
The male-female health survival paradox, also known as the morbidity-mortality paradox or gender paradox, is the phenomenon in which female humans experience more medical conditions and disability during their lives, but they unexpectedly live longer than males. This paradox, where females experience greater morbidity (diseases) but lower mortality (death) in comparison to males, is unusual since it is expected that experiencing disease increases the likelihood of death. However, in this case, the part of the population that experiences more disease and disability is the one that lives longer.
Dementia and Alzheimer's disease in Australia is a major health issue. Alzheimer's disease is the most common type of dementia in Australia. Dementia is an ever-increasing challenge as the population ages and life expectancy increases. As a consequence, there is an expected increase in the number of people with dementia, posing countless challenges to carers and the health and aged care systems. In 2018, an estimated 376,000 people had dementia; this number is expected to increase to 550,000 by 2030 and triple to 900,000 by 2050. The dementia death rate is increasing, resulting in the shift from fourth to second leading cause of death from 2006 to 2015. It is expected to become the leading cause of death over the next number of years. In 2011, it was the fourth leading cause of disease burden and third leading cause of disability burden. This is expected to remain the same until at least 2020.