Avoidable mortality and men’s health status in Sri Lanka

Abstract

There is a growing attention on men’s health in the developed countries today but such emphasis is frail in the developing world. This has been largely due to the enormous attentiveness on the maternal and child health arising from high level of infant/child and maternal mortality in those nations. Sri Lanka is not very different despite substantial declines in infant, child and maternal mortality compared to most of the other developing populations. Number of deaths by underlying cause, age and sex were obtained from the Registrar Generals’ Department of Sri Lanka for the year 2006. The year 2006 was selected for this study since that was the latest year in which the above mentioned data was available. Population numbers by age and sex were obtained from the Department of Census and Statistics in Sri Lanka for the same year. Comparative survival probabilities of men and women in Sri Lanka exemplify that they are not favourable to men. They suggest that men are increasingly exposed to high risk mortality factors. This paper examines what those high risk mortality factors are and at which ages men are vulnerable to higher risk. In relation to the diseases of the circulatory system, nervous system, respiratory system, endocrine, nutritional and metabolic diseases and external causes of morbidity and mortality, men are in a more hostile position in promoting their survival chances. Although most these causes are amenable to medical interventions, sex differentials of mortality can be attributed to factors other than such interventions.