Factors Affecting Death

Like birth rate, thedeath rate is also affected by various factors. In other words, death results with the interplay of socio-economic and biophysical factors. Some of them are as follows:

Biological factors

Biological factors are those which are related to our body and its physiological processes.

Some of the biological factors affecting death are as follows: -

1. Heredity

   

   Long life is considered as the feature of heredity which is true to some extent in some special instances. However, such longevity does not remainsame and it depends on surrounding environment where man is born and grown.

2. Sex

   

   Studies have shown that women have longer life expectancy than men. It may be due to biological and social causes that affectthe life expectancy. Besides, it is also found that death rate among infants is also similar to the life expectancy of adults. The death rates for male infants are higher than those of female infants.

3. Ageing (Senescence)

   

   With the increase in age of man, various biological activities are gradually slowed down. Various tissues and cells are gradually weakened. Besides, immunity and capability are also decreased. Sensory organs, memory power are weakened as aman grows very old. We die of elderly weakness which is a thenatural process.

Socio-economic factors

Diseases can also be taken as socio-economic factors though they are related to biophysical factors which can be taken as the factor affecting death.

1. The level of nutrition

   

   The children, especially under five years of age, die due to lack of nutritious foods. A balanced diet is a must for a healthy living. There are deficiency diseases caused by protein, energy, carbohydrate, malnutrition and also by micro-nutrient deficiencies. These are the causes of high death rates.

2. Health services

   

   Most of the people in rural areas are deprived of health services due to various reasons. The reasons may be their affordability and availability of health services. Even if the health services are available, they are not aware of the health hazards and health care due to lack of health education. People die of air and water borne diseases, unhygienic surroundings and unhealthy sanitary conditions.

3. Diseases

   

   Diseases are the major causes of deaths. Some diseases are curable and some are fatal. However, due to scientific inventions in health care services, people have overcome many diseases, which once used to be fatal. But there are still some diseases like cancer, HIV/AIDS and others, which are not curable and are fatal.

4. Health Education

   

   The health knowledge, attitude and the practice of the people help to make the surrounding and life of the people neat, clean and healthy. If people have no knowledge about it, they do not practice and death rate increases.

5. Natural calamities

   

   We have to face various natural calamities or disasters as well. People in some places suffer from flood and landslide whereas other face the calamities like an earthquake. Famine can be another calamity in some places. So, mortality is also affected by them.