THE HEALTH TRANSITION - AN AGING WORLD

Global life expectancy is now 65: that of the developing world, 63. This sea‐change has been termed the Health Transition, in which high infant and child mortality, due largely to acute, infectious disease, are being superseded by the relatively expensive chronic, non‐communicable diseases of adults and the elderly. The development of priorities directed towards the infectious diseases of children over the past decade has been a factor in the great decline of mortality in this age group over the past decade. Similar strategies need to be developed to deal with the diseases of adults, particularly because of their exceedingly high cost. The implication of these massive changes for the medical profession, and particularly for medical education, is discussed at the undergraduate, postgraduate and continuing medical education levels. An emphasis is placed on the disciplines of population‐based medicine, including statistics, demography, epidemiology, economics and informatics. 1994 Blackwell Publishing