Latin American convergence and divergence towards the mortality profiles of developed countries

Jesús-Adrián Alvarez,José Manuel Aburto,Vladimir Canudas-Romo

doi:10.1080/00324728.2019.1614651

Abstract

It is uncertain whether Latin America and Caribbean (LAC) countries are approaching a single mortality regime. Over the last three decades, LAC has experienced major public health interventions and the highest number of homicides in the world. However, these interventions and homicide rates are not evenly shared across countries. This study documents trends in life expectancy and lifespan variability for 20 LAC countries, 2000–14. By extending a previous method, we decompose differences in lifespan variability between LAC and a developed world benchmark into cause-specific effects. For both sexes, dispersion of amenable diseases through the age span makes the largest contribution to the gap between LAC and the benchmark. Additionally, for males, the concentration of homicides, accidents, and suicides in mid-life further impedes mortality convergence. Great disparity exists in the region: while some countries are rapidly approaching the developed regime, others remain far behind and suffer a clear disadvantage in population health.

Highlights

The epidemiological transition theory (Omran 1971) is the starting point and obligatory reference for any global mortality convergence study
The results derived from this research allowed us to analyse mortality convergence trajectories, comparing 20 countries from Latin America and Caribbean (LAC) with a benchmark we constructed based on a developed world mortality regime
From our extension of the decomposition method by Nau and Firebaugh (2012) to include standard deviation differences, we are able to test hypotheses about convergence patterns and draw two important conclusions: (1) the dispersion of amenable diseases across the age span makes the largest contribution to the gap between LAC and the developed world; and (2) the concentration of high levels of homicide, accidents, and suicide in mid-life is the main impediment to mortality convergence for males in LAC

Summary

A Journal of Demography

ISSN: 0032-4728 (Print) 1477-4747 (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rpst. It is uncertain whether Latin America and Caribbean (LAC) countries are approaching a single mortality regime. By extending a previous method, we decompose differences in lifespan variability between LAC and a developed world benchmark into cause-specific effects. For both sexes, dispersion of amenable diseases through the age span makes the largest contribution to the gap between LAC and the benchmark.

Introduction

Results

Discussion