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A Comparison of Mortality and Sickness in Relation to Geographical and Socio-Economic Factors

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 August 2016

R. H. Daw
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Extract

‘Suppose a man becomes ill, gets worse and dies. His death is instantaneous but the cause of his death—deterioration of health—may have been progressing for some time. Death takes place because his health has deteriorated beyond a certain limit.’ So wrote C. D. Rich (1940) in introducing his ‘General theory of mortality’ which can also be regarded as a theory of sickness, although Rich does not develop this aspect of it. The point in the gradual deterioration of health at which death takes place is unmistakable but the point at which sickness begins is hazy and ill defined, as also is the point at which recovery from sickness takes place when health is improving. As Stocks (1949) says ‘The distinction between the living and the dead is clear cut, but no such frontier line between sickness and health can be said to exist except in the case of acute illness caused immediately and directly by an external agent. There is a zone between the two states in which the decision whether the subject is sick or not depends on definitions or standards of good health and also on who decides.’

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of the Institute of Actuaries , Volume 97 , Issue 1 , June 1971 , pp. 17 - 67
Copyright
Copyright © Institute and Faculty of Actuaries 1971

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