Chapter two: Population "103 women sterilized in a day at West Bengal hospital"

This is a news video on the horrible treatment of the 103 women who had sterilization surgeries at West Bengal Hospital in yet another of the India government's desperate attempts to control their country's ever growing population.

Chapter Two: Population; "What Happens When We All Live to 100" & "The US Economy's Big Baby Problem"

Katie Taylor
September 28, 2014

Article: Horror in a Mass Sterilization Camp by Carol Kuruvilla

..................

The indian government wants to control their population growth, but this is very difficult in areas were women don't often have access to birth control, so four government employed doctors performed sterilization operations on 103 women in one day, then they left them in a field to recover and many died from infections. 

Map:  I chose Eastern Asia because it houses 1/4 of the worlds population. China alone has an astounding 1.3 billion, which is the highest population of any country. The map also features Taiwan which is the 8th most densely populated country in the world and Japan which has the highest life expectancy and the oldest population.


Model: "The Demographic Cycle"

The Demographic Transition model was first invented by Warren Thompson in 1929. The model demonstrates the five stages that a country's birth and death rates go through as the country develops over time. In the first stage (when a country is still quite undeveloped) the birth and death rates are close together, but as time progresses and medicine becomes better the death rate plummets and the population skyrockets in stage two. However, as the country approaches stage three birth control becomes available and women start choosing to have fewer children causing the birth rate to drop. Even with the low death rates when the country reaches the end of stage four and enters stage five the population is declining because the birth rates are now too low to replace the number of people dying. If this model is correct it will mean that the world population will drop drastically in the future.


Readings:
What Happens When We All Live to 100 by Greg Easterbrook
The US Economy's Big Baby Problem by Derek Thompson
Chapter Two: "Population"
Question: Despite the public's positive desire for longevity, what problems do an aging population present for the economy?

Around the world longevity has always been desired and respected. People are taught to respect their elders and strive to live to a ripe old age themselves.  With current advances in medicine and genetic research, we are well on our way to the era of the centenarians. Each year the newborn is expected to live an estimated three months longer than those born the previous year. But is this really good for the economy? 

Two hundred years ago the world was concerned with the Population Explosion, but in recent years the concern in developed countries has actually been population shrinkage and an aging population. The new fear is that the fall in Crude Birth Rates (CBR) and Crude Death Rates (CDR) will result in Zero Population Growth causing the economy to collapse. The Demographic Transition that occurs when people live longer and CBR declines puts tremendous stress on the work force because the elderly need to be supported.  The elderly no longer contribute to the economy by working and generating income, instead they require expensive health care and social security checks.

As medicine and technology has improved, the average life expectancy at birth in America has gone from 47 years to 79 years. The U.S. appears to be entering what Thompson’s Demographic transition cycle refers to as at the 4th stage in which the population is ceasing to grow and begins to simply age. As you can see in the figure below if these trends continue in 100 years the population pyramid of the U.S. demographic will be very top heavy. If this occurs it will crush the work force with taxes and create a huge over flow of empty jobs because there simply won't be enough people to fill them. 

Another problem an aging population presents for the economy is the decrease in the amount of money the average family spends per year. People with children spend about $14,000 per child each year. The elderly with grown or no children have no need for these large expenditures. If there were no longer be a large enough demand for the supply the markets geared towards adolescents and children would take a huge hit. Universities, a major revenue generator in our economy, would find themselves struggling to get enough students enrolled and would have to redirect their advertising efforts towards getting senior citizens to take classes. College towns that had thrived on youth culture would begin to have more elderly inhabitants and have to build fewer bars and more hospitals. So although living to one hundred may be the shared goal of many, for the sake of the economy we better hope that never happens. 

Potential Books for Reviewing - Epidemics Blog Link

Click Here for a link to my book search blog on Epidemics

Fast Food Fatalities Powerpoint Slides APGeoGroup5Period5

Presenters: Katie Taylor, Charlotte Sutherland, and Maggie Berry

Click here to view this presentation on slide share.

"The Tipping Point" & "Chapter 1: An Intoduction to Human Geography"

Katie Taylor
September 7, 2014


Thoughts and Ruminations

Article: U.N. Struggles to Stem Haiti Cholera Epidemic
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/20/world/americas/un-struggles-to-stem-haiti-cholera-epidemic.html?_r=1

Chapoteau Haiti was in desperate need of funds from the United Nations in order to fund clinics to treat the cholera epidemic, but the United Nations failed to raise even $5 million of the $2 billion promised, so clinics ran out of even the most basic of treatment supplies and many were forced to shut down. Then 8,562 died from a disease which should be easily treatable.

Readings:
The Tipping Point Chapter One By Malcolm Gladwell
"Chapter One: An Introduction to Human Geography" of Human Geography
"How do Malcom Gladwell's The Tipping Point and chapter one of Human Geography relate?"

            In both Malcolm Gladwell's best seller "The Tipping Point" and chapter 1 of "Human Geography People, Places and Culture" the authors discuss epidemics using the examples of the spread of diseases and fashion trends through cultural diffusion.  Gladwell starts his chapter by using the example of the contagious spread of hush puppy shoes in 1994. The hush puppy epidemic probably all started with a few hipsters wearing the outdated shoes with no intention of promoting them. Through line of sight and word of mouth the popularity of a shoe which had been near extinction continued to rise. As more and more people started catching on throughout the area, it continued to gain public attention until it had snowballed into a national phenomena.

            The text book refers to this process of the spread of an epidemic through connected individuals as contagious diffusion. Although it uses the example of silly bands instead of hush puppies, the principle discussed is still the same. The brightly colored silicon bands may not be all that exciting for the average adult, but the product spread like wildfire among school children. One day only a few children would be adorned with the silly bands on their wrists and the following day the whole class would have them. Much like the spread of hush puppies, the wearers of the silly bands were not deliberately trying to promote the product, but nonetheless its popularity spread like a highly contagious cold.
             In addition to the hush puppy epidemic that swept the nation in the 90's, Gladwell examined the spread of several sexually transmitted diseases such as syphilis, HIV and Aids and how they were mapped with the use of medical geography. Each time a new patient is admitted to a public clinic in Baltimore for treatment of syphilis or gonorrhea, their address is subsequently entered into a database which maps all the cases in the city with a black star. This use of medical geography to create disease maps helps geographers understand more about how the epidemic spreads and its patterns, which is the first step towards finding a cause and a cure. In "Human Geography People, Places and Culture" it discusses how this same technique was also used to map the spread of Cholera which swept the Soho district of London in the 1850's. Eventually through the use of the map created, scientists were able to determine that the epidemic was being spread through the water pumps and were able to advise people to boil their water, nearly halting the spread of the disease altogether.
            The two authors insights brought several important concepts to the table. The first being the ease through which an epidemic can disseminate and the fact that it only takes one individual to be the catalyst for the rapid spread of an epidemic. Secondly the ways geography helps to stop epidemics and lastly both authors illustrated that whether it be shoes, silly bands or STDs, geography is essential for understanding what propels the spread of epidemics.

 

This is a map of Haiti and the Dominican Republic in which epidemic, such as cholera easily entered the countries through people coming to help with disaster relief after the earthquakes and then spread gontagiously due to poor health care.