Articles: mortality.
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In the contemporary United States, mortality is 60% higher for males than for females. Forty percent of the excess of male mortality is due to arteriosclerotic heart disease, which is more common among men in part because they smoke cigarettes more than women do, and apparently also because they more often develop the competitive, aggressive Coronary Prone Behavior Pattern. Men who do not develop this Behavior Pattern may have as low a risk of coronary heart disease as comparable women. ⋯ One third of the sex differential in mortality is due to men's higher rates of suicide, fatal motor vehicle and other accidents, cirrhosis of the liver, respiratory cancers and emphysema. Each of these causes of death is linked to behaviours which are encouraged or accepted more in males than in females: using guns, drinking alcohol, smoking, working at hazardous jobs, and seeming to be fearless. Thus, the behaviors expected of males in our society make a major contribution to their elevated mortality.
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Data on maternal deaths were collected from a randomly selected sample of medical institutions in the Western State of Nigeria for the years 1972 and 1973. An overall maternal mortality rate of 3.8/1000 total births were recorded for 1972 and 1973 respectively. The major causes of maternal mortality were haemorrhage, obstructed labour, eclampsia, anaemia of pregnancy and infection.
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The relation of pulmonary function to aging and cigarette habits has been examined cross sectionally and longitudinally in the Framingham cohort. On cross-sectional analysis, women were found to have lower forced vital capacity (FVC) and forced expiratory volume in 1 second (FEV-1) values than men even after adjusting for height. Their FEV-1 percent was, on the other hand, higher than those of men. ⋯ Longitudinally, cigarette smokers showed a more rapid decline in FVC in 10 years than nonsmokers. On giving up smoking their FVC became more like that of the nonsmokers. A striking relation of FVC to mortality was noted in both sexes, which is not accounted for by associated cigarette habits.