The demographic indicators underlying the epidemiologic transition of diseases from transitory to non-transitory diseases.

Abstract

The epidemiologic transition of diseases from transitory to non-transitory diseases is considered as a crucial phenomenon that it has, in the recent decades, received tremendous interest from the part of many leading specialists in the fields of demography, health, and more importantly, the World Health Organization (WHO). This transition is due mainly to the radical change underlying the causes of either kind of diseases; contagious illnesses such as malaria, immunity loss and many others which used to occupy the first ranks in terms of mortality rate as well as the non-transitory diseases such as cardiovascular diseases, high blood pressure and diabetes. Therefore, this article attempts to tackle this remarkable shift in the kind of diseases through studying their major factors and causes and digging deep into the very reasons behind the spread of modern day diseases that have increased mortality rate dramatically in societies, particularly the Algerian society. This is owing to the fact that those societies have undergone various societal changes at various levels among which the changing lifestyles, the acquisition of bad eating habits leading to obesity, the spread of an array of behaviors related to civilized life that restrain the individual’s physical activity and finally the relative conditions of the individual within the family and the society. All the above mentioned factors constitute the origin of modern day chronic diseases.