Epidemiologic Transition in Australia: The last hundred years

Abstract

Mortality change in Australia since 1907 is analysed in the light of Epidemiologic Transition theory. Australia began the twentieth century in the second age of the Epidemiologic Transition, the Age of Receding Pandemics. Australia probably moved to the third, the Age of Degenerative and Man-Made Diseases before 1946, which is slightly in advance of most Western countries. Transition to the fourth, the Age of Delayed Degenerative Diseases, is clearly marked by a downturn, in about 1970, in circulatory disease mortality, concurrent with other Western countries.