In this week's PLoS Medicine, Cleusa Ferri of King's College London Institute of Psychiatry, UK and colleagues report on their investigation of mortality rates in over 12 000 people aged 65 years and over in Latin America, India, and China. The authors show that chronic diseases are the main causes of death, with stroke the leading cause in almost all sites studied, and that education has an important effect on mortality.
The authors state: "Our findings are important in informing priorities to improve health and reduce deaths in older people…Given the much higher absolute mortality rates among older people, efforts to ensure universal access to education should confer substantial health benefits for generations to come."
Funding: The 10/66 Dementia Research Group's research has been funded by the Wellcome Trust Health Consequences of Population Change Programme (GR066133, Prevalence phase in Cuba and Brazil; GR08002, Incidence phase in Peru, Mexico, Argentina, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Venezuela, and China), the World Health Organization (India, Dominican Republic, and China), the US Alzheimer's Association (IIRG-04-1286, Peru, Mexico, and Argentina), and FONACIT/CDCH/UCV (Venezuela). The Rockefeller Foundation supported our dissemination meeting at their Bellagio Centre. Alzheimer's Disease International has provided support for networking and infrastructure. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.
Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.
Citation: Ferri CP, Acosta D, Guerra M, Huang Y, Llibre-Rodriguez JJ, et al. (2012) Socioeconomic Factors and All Cause and Cause-Specific Mortality among Older People in Latin America, India, and China: A Population-Based Cohort Study. PLoS Med 9(2): e1001179. doi:10.1371/journal.pmed.1001179
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PLoS Medicine