Global health inequalities: The challenge to epidemiology

Abstract

In 1998, of every 100 15-year-old boys in Iceland, 91 could expect, on the basis of current levels of mortality, to survive until the age of 60. Among a similar group of Zambian boys, only 22 could have a similar expectation. Male life expectancy at birth is similar in Russia and Ghana, but the underlying causes are very different.