Question

7. What factors affect morbidity and mortality?

Answer 1

7.

Morbidity: The incidence of a disease, as a rate of population which is affected. It is the quality or being unhealthful, morbid, some times including the cause.

Mortality: The death rate of a population is called mortality.

Factors affecting Morbidity and mortality

There are many factors that affecting the mortality and morbidity rate of a population. The main factors are infectious diseases, lifestyle diseases, accidents and violence, aging, Medical facilities, Vaccination and Public education.

Infectious diseases or communicable diseases

Infectious diseases ranging from lower respiratory tract infection to Ebola virus infection causes the increase in morbidity and mortality in people. The infection might be bacterial, viral, parasite infection. For example: Influenza, Tuberculosis, HIV infection, malaria.

Life style diseases and non communicable diseases

In the modern world, the most common cause of death is Heart disease. It is a life style disease. Unhealthy lifestyle such as physical inactivity, lack of excersice, junk food consumption, dietary styles,bad habits like smoking and alcoholism all contributes to morbidity like Diabetes, hypertension, heart disease, stroke. Cancer is one of the major non communicable disease that largely affect the population's death and disease rate.

Accidents and violence

Another major cause of illness and death are accidents( motor vehicle accidents, fire, natural calamities) and violence( homicide, suicide, war and riots) .

Aging is another factor that affect morbidity and mortality in people. As age increases people are tend to get many lifestyle diseases.

Recent decades are witnessing a decline in crude death rate in population along with the decreased birthrate.Increased medical facilities and treatment, Vaccination for different infectious diseases ,Public awareness and Education, public health programmes etc are the major factors that decreases the morbidity and mortality rate among population.