Age has the ability to confound prevalence data. Yet, the effects of length of exposure and age-structure on such prevalence data are seldom directly measured in osteological studies.Here we describe a simple method that addresses both issues through the use of personyears, and treatment of data in the case of rare events as Poisson counts. We advocate use of person-years as a denominator when comparing skeletal data that involves the cumulative insults of ageing (e.g. fractures, dental caries, and other chronic diseases such as osteoarthritis).
This study will assess the general impact of the 1918 influenza on overall mortality and its impact on mortality attributable to pulmonary tuberculosis in a small-scale population. Using life table and decomposition methodologies, changes in mortality in Gibraltar used a scheme that identified a pre-epidemic period (1904-1917), the epidemic year (1918), and the post-epidemic period (1919-1927). Overall health in both sexes fell significantly in 1918 with a drop in life expectancy at birth, however, health quickly rebounded in the post-epidemic period. In the case of women, there was a significant increase in life expectancy at birth after the epidemic. The impact of influenza on the magnitude of sex differentials in the life expectancy at birth fell during epidemic year but returned to a level comparable to that of the pre-epidemic period. With respect to respiratory tuberculosis deaths, the immediate impact of influenza was restricted to only a significant increase in the rate among women (aged 15-54). In the post-epidemic period, tuberculosis mortality rates returned to the pre-epidemic state in both sexes. The findings from Gibraltar stand in contrast opposition to results reported for experience in the United States during the 1918 flu.
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