OCR Text |
Show Outlook Good for Better Health Top Insurance Experts Predict Americans have enjoyed favorable favor-able health in 1959, as measured by prevailing mortality and the prospects for continued high standards of national health in 1960 are excellent, the statist-cians statist-cians of the Metropolitan Life Insurance Co. report. At the same time the statisticians statisti-cians point out that improvement in mortality in the U. S. during the decade of the 1950's has been slight. Considerably greater gains were recorded during the decade of the 1940s and the decade de-cade of the 1930's. The national death rate for 1959 is estimated to be about 9.4 per 1.000 population, or a shade below that for the year before. This year's rate is 2 per cent below the rate in 1950 and 2 per cent above the all time low of 9.2 per 1,000 recorded in 1954. "The limited reduction in the recorded death rate during the 1950's has been due, in part, to the increased numbers in the population of infants and very old persons, the two groups that have the highest mortality. But even if alowance is made for the changing age composition of the population, the relative decrease in mortality during the 1950's has been less than a third during the 1940s and only about half the reduction during the 1930's. These features of the year's health record are set forth by the statisticians. Although influenza has not been epidemic in the U.S. during 1959, the death rate from pneumonia pneu-monia and influenza, surprisingly, surprising-ly, is not much below that in the preceding two years, both of which had widespread outbreaks of influenza. In fact, the death I rate from pneumonia and flu has fluctuate widely around 31 per, 100,000 all during the 1950's without showing anv downward i condtioins of recent years have contributed to the long-term decrease de-crease in tuberculosis mortality. The four principal communicable communi-cable diseases of childhood measles, scarlet fever, whooping cough and diphtheria continue to record an extremely low death rate, about 0.5 per 100,000, in 1959. Cases of measles totaled little more than half the number reported the year before. Infant mortality in 1959 had a slight improvement over the experience in 1958, and was only fractionally above the all time low of 26.1 per 1000 live births recorded in 1956. Maternal mortality, mor-tality, too, continued to be very favorable in 1959 with a rate of about 4 per 100,000 live births. "Both maternal and infant mortality rates are appreciably below those recorded a decade earlier and because of the record number of births in recent years, the saving of lives in infancy and maternity has been especially large." Preliminary estimates indicate that motor vehicle accidents took a somewhat greater number of lives this year than last, when the victims totaled about 37,000 in the U. S. In 1950, the toll was less than 35,000. "The new decade is faced with (many health and medical problems," prob-lems," the statisticians contend. "Major attention will undoubtedly undoubt-edly be focused on the chronic disorders of middle and late life which are the major causes of sicknessa nd death in our country. coun-try. With the great amount of research re-search now in progress on heart and related diseases and cancer, it is expected that some break throughs will be achieved in the I fields in the coming years. The outlook is also encouraging for advances in knowledge and new methods of treating rheumatic diseases and mental disorders." trend. This is in marked contrast to the experience during the 1940's when the death rate from these causes was cut in half. The death rate from diseases of the heart, arteries and kidneys apears to be slightly lower in 1959 than in the two prior years, according to the statisticians. In 1957 and 1958 the mortality from these chronic diseases had been adversely affected by the flu outbreaks. For the decade as a whole, the age adjusted death rate from diseases of the heart, arteries and kidneys has changed only little for males but has decreased de-creased among women. These diseases now account for somewhat some-what over half the total mortality mor-tality of each sex. Cancer mortality is slightly higher this year than last. During Dur-ing the 1950's the age adjusted death rate from cancer has had contrasting trends for the two sexes an increase for males and a decrease for females. The incidence of poliomyelitis particularly of the paralytic type increased sharply this year. By the end of 1959 there will probably prob-ably be nearly 8,500 cases of the disease reported in the U. S., compared with about 5800 the year before and with 38,000 in 1954, before the general use of the Salk vaccine. Almost 3 out of every 4 polio cases in 1959 have been of the naralytic type, whereas in 1958 the proportion was only 2 in every 3. Some further progress was made during 1959 in reducing the mortality from tuberculosis, which now is less than 7 per 100.000 population. Antibiotic therapy and favorable economic |