Question

Which has been more influential in raising life expectancy, economic growth or development of medical technology? What evidence would support your answer? What evidence would contradict your answer? What evidence would support either answer?

**pleaae give a detailed andwer. this is a 4 part question-answer** thank you!

Answer 1

a) Let us look into what could be more influencial in raising life expectency.

The development in medical technology could increase life expectancy because :

i) The medical conditions which were previously untreatable could be treated if the medical technology is developed. This leads to reduction in the number of deaths due to those medical conditions and the life expectancy is raised. An example would be many infective diseases were uncurable and led to large number of deaths before the invention of penicillin. Malaria led to a large number of deaths before the invention of quinine and later chloroquin. Black death wiped out nearly a third of European population because medical technology was highly undeveloped at that time.

The development of new surgical procedures has led to a reduced mortality from cardiovascular diseases, among many other diseases which need surgical procedures.

The economic growth could increase life expectancy because:

i) Economic growth drives development in medical technology. The cost of medical research is very high and needs a strong economy to back it. Therefore, it is essentially a strong economy which leads to a development in medical technology.

ii) Strong economy leads to higher disposable income and increased government spending on healthcare.  This leads to subsidized healthcare services for those who cannot afford them as well as greater expenditure on healthcare by those who could afford it. When the access to healthcare systems is greater, the number of avoidable deaths will be greatly reduced, infreasing life expectancy.

iii) Strong economy leads to better living conditions and better infrastructure. Due to better living conditions i.e. better hygiene and cleaner environment, the probability of many diseases is largely reduced (eg. due to reduced number of mosquitos, the risk of malaria is reduced. Due to cleaner water, rist of Typhoid is reduced, etc.). Due to better infrastructure, access to hospitals and other health care centers becomes very easy. Both these factors could reduce avoidable deatch and increase life expectancy.

In conclusion, we could say that development in medical technology is important for increasing life expectancy but it is economic growth which drives the development. Therefore, economic growth is the larger contributor to raising life expectancy.

b) Let us see a supporting evidence for this theory.

Global life expectancy at birth in 2016 was 72.0 years (74.2 years for females and 69.8 years for males), ranging from 61.2 years in the WHO African Region to 77.5 years in the WHO European Region, giving a ratio of 1.3 between the two regions. (Data is from WHO studies). The life expectancy for US is 78.69 years.

As of 2019, polio has been eradicated due to vaccinations. However, polio is endemic only in three countries viz. Pakistan, Afganistan and Nigeria. All these countries are one of the poorest (In addition, Nigeria is the most corrupt country in the world)

Now, putting this data in perspective, we could see that stronger economies have higher life expectancy than weaker economies (African countries). The result could be explained by better healthcare facilities, better access to healthcare facilities, lesser child and mother mortality rates for the citizens and lesser amount of diseases which result from bad living conditions. All these factors are related to economic growth.

c) Now let us see an evidence which seems to contradict this theory

According to WHO ' The 2000-2016 increase was greatest in the WHO African Region, where life expectancy increased by 10.3 years to 61.2 years, driven mainly by improvements in child survival, and expanded access to antiretrovirals for treatment of HIV.' The reason for this cannot be economic growth because the average GDP of African nations grew at only 3-5% and GDP of some African nations saw negative growth in this period.

According to WHO, this increase in life expectancy could be attributed to development of medical technology in these countries. However, we should note that the development in medical technology in African countries is mainly due to WHO interventions

Also, according to WHO study conducted in 2015, the life expectancy of Algeria (75.6 years) is almost the same as that of China (76.1 years). China is an extremenly powerful economy, one of the top world economies whereas Algeria is much below China both in GDP and GDP per capita.

d) Now let us consider data that is consistent with both these answers:

The average life expectancy of Japan is 83.7 years, which is better than US (78.69 years), UK and Canada.

This could be explained in either of the 2 ways :

i) Japan has registered a very strong economic growth since the 1960s. In 1965, the average life expectancy of Japan was around 69 years, slightly less than that of UK. However, as the economic progress of Japan begun, life expectancy rapidly rose till Japan became the country with highest life expectancy in the world (It is currently at number 2, slightly behind Hongkong).

ii) We could also say from this data that, though the economies of these countries (per capita bases) are comparable, Japan still has a higher life expectancy. This could not be attributed simply to the economic growth and the important factor is better healtcare facilities and better medical technology available in Japan.

Thus, both the economic growth and improvements in medical technology are factors here.