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Biomedical subjects

B B Torrey

Publications and source records attributed to B B Torrey.

10 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed1993

More than loose change: household health spending in the United States and Canada.

A key point of comparison between U.S. and Canadian health spending is what amount citizens spend for health coverage, given their respective health systems. A comparison of household spending surveys in the two countries shows that Canadian households pay about half of what American households pay for health coverage, but their personal tax burden is almost twice that of Americans. Net personal consumption thus is quite similar between the two countries. Total household health spending in the United States amounted to $215.6 billion in 1989--one-third of the total spent on health that year.

Adult↗
PubMed1992

The evolving demography of aging in the United States of American and the former USSR.

In the United States of America and in the republics of the former USSR, the elderly (persons aged 60 and over) will comprise the same proportion of their respective societies by the year 2000, namely 17%. In both countries, this population subgroup is growing at a faster rate than the rest of the population and living longer, although there are now more differences than similarities between the two countries in respect of the elderly, as summarized below. Similarities. In both countries today, the age group 50 years and over represents 26% of the total population, and by the year 2000 it is expected that 17% of the population will be 60 years and over. Diseases of the circulatory system and neoplasms are the major causes of death in both countries. Life expectancy beyond retirement age (i.e. the number of years a person is expected to live after having retired) is about the same in both, but this is due to the statistical fact that in the former USSR women are expected to have an extra year of life expectancy compared to their United States counterparts, while men are expected to live 2.5 years less beyond retirement than their United States counterparts. Differences. Mortality rates in the former USSR are higher than those in the United States. Life expectancy for men in the former USSR is 6.5 years below the figure for United States males. By age 65, the differences are 2.7 years for women and 2.4 years for men. Today, the proportion of the population having reached retirement age is larger in the former USSR than in the United States (17% vs 15%) because of lower retirement age in the former USSR. By the year 2000, these figures are expected to be 19% and 25%, respectively. Men make up 27% of the pension-age population in the former USSR against 41% in the United States. Life expectancy at birth could increase by 4 years for men in the former USSR if they had the same mortality rates from diseases of the circulatory and respiratory systems as their United States counterparts. Similarly, women in the former USSR would gain 4 years of life from these two causes alone. Older women are more likely to be married in the United States than in the former USSR, and this difference increases with age: at age 65, 25% of the former USSR's women are married versus 41% in the United States.

Adult↗
PubMed1990

Population dynamics of the United States and the Soviet Union.

Population growth in the United States and the Soviet Union is slowing. Since the 1970s, labor force growth in both countries is slowing even more than population growth, and both countries are aging. Economic effects of slowing growth can be compensated for by increased participation in the labor force and increased productivity and by adjustments in the military forces. Economic flexibility and policy choices will determine how successfully the trend to slower population growth will be accommodated.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1987

Comparative well-being of children and elderly.

"This paper compares the economic well-being of children and the elderly to each other in the United States and across six industrialized countries. Using the Luxembourg Income Study database, we find that U.S. children--whose economic status is measured by their family income--are generally worse off than U.S. elderly in terms of both poverty and adjusted mean income. Moreover, U.S. children are worse off in terms of higher poverty rates than are the children in any of the other countries studied. The paper presents a variety of explanations for these differences."

Adolescent↗
PubMed1985

Sharing increasing costs on declining income: the visible dilemma of the invisible aged.

The federal government considers all persons aged 65 and over a single beneficiary group, and data collectors consider them a single cohort. As a result, the very old (80 years and over) are virtually invisible; little is known about their specific income benefits and economic resources. Costs for the very old--a more economically diverse group than the nonaged--are likely to grow disproportionately. Recent proposals to share costs will affect the distribution of income and assets among the aged and between generations.

Aged↗
PubMed1979

A shifting seasonality of schizophrenic births.

In view of recent findings in Japan, and in England and Wales, data on schizophrenic births in the United States were reexamined to see if seasonal shifts had occurred. In Missouri a progressive shift from February to April and May was noted between 1921 and 1930 and between 1941 and 1950. In five New England states there was no shift over the same period. Data were then obtained to compare the Missouri shift with two hypotheses previously put forward to explain schizophrenic birth seasonality: (1) that it is related to the seasonality of general births, and (2) that it is related to seasonal temperature variation. Neither hypothesis was supported by the data.

Adult↗
PubMed1977

Seasonality of schizophrenic births in the United States.

The birth months of persons later diagnosed as schizophrenic were studied. Data were collected from 19 states on 53,584 schizophrenics born between 1920 and 1955. The controls were the general births in the same states for the same years. A highly significant peak in schizophrenic births was found from December to May, most marked in March and April. The seasonality was stronger in New England and the Midwest than in the South. Previous studies of schizophrenic births are also reviewed. The cumulative evidence would appear to establish more firmly a winter and spring seasonality of schizophrenic births in northern Europe and the eastern United States. Selection of patients, nutritional factors, environmental factors, genetic factors, and infectious agents are discussed as possible etiological explanations.

Adult↗