The Rise in Life Expectancy - Essay Example

There are a great many metrics by which medical professionals seek to define health and the quality of life that individuals in different geographiesexperience. However, one of the most well known and frequently levered of these approaches is that of overall life expectancy. As the name implies, life expectancy is a quantitative measurement that is responsible for ascertaining an average life span that an individual within a specific region or demographic is “expected” to experience; based upon available data points and averages that have been catalogued and recorded previously.

Over the past century, and specifically over the past several decades, overall human life expectancy in nearly all corners of the globe has increased dramatically. As a function of relating an explanation to this, the following discussion will be concentric upon providing some key insights as to why this increase in life expectancy might be explained. It is the further hope of this student that after reading the following essay and engaging with the research that will be represented, the reader will come to a more informed understanding with respect to the way in which life expectancy has increased and the overall inference that can be had from such an understanding; specifically how it might relate to the future of healthcare and society.

This paper aims at providing detailed information on the reasons of the rise in life expectancy in the last century in order to show that the most significant factor has been advancement in technology. One of the first and most obvious reasons for the drastic increase in life expectancy relates to the drastic decrease in infant mortality that was evidenced during so much of human history (Kenichi et al., 2014). As medical science came to understand the complications and threats that existed for the very young, the means by which unique treatments could be directed towards the mothers and their newborns came to be better and better.

Moreover, the process of having a doctor or midwife come to the home as a function of delivering the baby began to fall out of fashion; exhibiting a situation in which a sanitary hospital or doctor’s office that was invariably better equipped came to represent the standard of live birth throughout the world (Wilson, 2014). Moreover, the vaccines that have come available since the introduction of penicillin have helped infants and newborns to survive and fight infections that might have otherwise claimed their lives prematurely (Satoshi, 2014).

With the annihilation of smallpox and immunizations against measles and the like, the mortality rate of infants began to rise precipitously not long after the pharmaceutical breakthroughs of the 20th century. Without the threat of these diseases, humanity was able to devote more time and attention to bettering the healthcare provision that the existing individuals within society achieved; rather than merely addressing one disease after another during a child’s early life (Charati et al., 2014).

However, medicine alone cannot be counted as the sole contribution to the decreased mortality rates and increased life expectancy that resulted (Kyunghee, 2014). As such, the following section will discuss the issue of health education as a means through which change came to be effected. References Charati, J., Khaksar, S., Khosravi, F., & Zoleikani, L. (2014). Changes in Life Expectancy Journal Of Medical Sciences (JMS), 24(111), 85-88. Kenichi, M., Mari, K., Kyoko, A., Mitsue, M., Hiroshi, I.

, & Satoshi, Y. (2014). Life Expectancy: A Retrospective Analysis. BMC Neurology, 14(1), 1-16. doi:10.1186/1471-2377-14-83 Satoshi, Y. (2014). Current and Past Life Expectancy: A Discussion of Past Change and Future Relevance. Journal of Medical Science, 14(1), 1-16. doi:10.1186/1471-2377-14-83 Kyunghee, J., Young-Ho, K., Hong-Jun, C., & Sung-Cheol, Y. (2014). Decomposition of life expectancy by age and causes of death over the past 100 years. BMC Public Health, 14(1), 1934-1950. doi:10.

1186/1471-2458-14-560 Wilson, T. (2014). New Population and Life Expectancy Estimates. Plos ONE, 9(5), 1-12. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0097576