Concerned with this 'essential

Demography •
numbering of the people' and with
• Study of human population dynamics understanding population dynamics
– how population change in response to
• Encompasses the study of the size, the interplay between fertility, mortality,
structure and distribution of and migration.
populations, and how populations
change over time due to • This understanding is a pre-requisite for
making the forecasts about future
• Births population size and structure which
• Deaths should underpin healthcare planning

• Migration Analysis of both present and future

necessitates a review of the past.
• Aging
• Number of very old people
Demographic Analysis
• Depends on the number of births
- Can relate to whole societies or to 8 or 9 decades ago
smaller groups defined by criteria such
as • Birth rates
- Education • Current patterns of family
- Religion building
- Ethnicity
• Number of women 'at risk' of
Indicators of change reproduction
• Two most important indicators of • Death rates
change
• Influenced by age structure
• Birth rates (fertility)
Background factors
• Death rates (mortality)
• May be used to describe
• Migration trends differences in health between
• Movement of people from one different population groups
location to another • Gender
Demography • Age
• While demography often provides • Civil status
useful portraits of social patterns,
accurate numerical values are often • Ethnicity
difficult to achieve • Socio-economic affiliations
• Thus, demographic understandings of • education
social structures and patterns are
continuously shifting in relation to the Population Pyramid
availability of more accurate data and • A graphical illustration that shows the
measurement techniques. distribution of various age groups in a
population
 • Population size: x-axis 4 stages:
o Pre-transition
• Age groups: y-axis
o Early transition
o Late transition
o Post-transition

Most population pyramids are defined as:

- Expansive
Classical Demographic Transition
- Stationary
Model
- Constrictive
✓ Stage 1: Pre-transition
• Characterized by high birth rates and
high fluctuating death rates
• Population growth was kept low by
• Malthusian "preventative"
check (late age of marriage)
• Malthusian "positive" check
(famine, war, pestilence)
• Unless the society develops new
WHY DO WE NEED TO STUDY technologies to increase food
DEMOGRAPHY? production, any fluctuations in birth
rates are soon matched by death rates.
✓ Importance In The Medical Field
• Knowing the nature of the population, ✓ Stage 2: Early Transition
we can design appropriate health • Death rates begin to fall
programs and policies that would • Birth rates remain high
cater to the unique health needs of the • Population starts to grow rapidly
age groups in the population • Due to improvements in food supply
and sanitation – which increases life
✓ Demographic Transition expectancies and reduce diseases.
- Refers to the transition from high birth
and death rates to lower birth and ✓ Stage 3: Late transition
death rates • Birth rates start to decline
- as a country or region develops from a • Due to various fertility factors:
pre-industrial to an industrialized access to contraception,
economic system increases in wages, urbanization,
a reduction in subsistence
 agriculture, an increase in the
status and education of women, a
reduction in the value of
children's work, an increase in
parenteral investment in the
education of children and other
social changes
• Population growth decelerates

✓ Stage 4: Post-transition
• Characterized by low birth and death
rates
• Population growth is negligible, or even
enters a decline