…focuses on distinctive causes of death in each of the stages of the demographic transition. Originally

formulated by Abdel Orman in 1971.

• Stage 1—pestilence and famine

• Stage 2—stage of receding pandemics

• Stage 3—degenerative and human created diseases

• Stage 4—delayed degenerative diseases

• Infectious and parasitic diseases along with animal attacks and attacks by other humans

• Malthus called these “natural checks”• Black Plague—history’s most violent stage 1

epidemic (hearth Kyrgyzstan)• Wiped out entire villages• Reached Western Europe in 1348• 25 million died—at least ½ population• 13 million died in China in 1380

• Stage of receding pandemics (a disease that occurs over a wide geographic area and affects a high proportion of the population)

• Improved sanitation, nutrition and medicine from the Industrial Revolution reduced spread of infectious disease.

• Cholera—unknown in rural areas—became an epidemic in urban areas

• Construction of water and sewer systems eradicated cholera

• However, stage 2 countries saw a rise

• Decrease in death from infectious diseases (sharp declines in measles, polio, tetanus, diphtheria, and pertussis)

• Stage of degenerative and human-created diseases

• Cardiovascular diseases, heart attacks and various forms of cancer

• Extended by Jay Olshansky and Brian Ault

• debilitating diseases associated with age are managed by medical advances

• Behavior changes improve health

Stage 5

• Some medical analysts argue stage 5 needs to be added because of a reemergence of infectious and parasitic diseases

• Diseases thought to be controlled have

reemerged• Evolution of microbes• EX. DDT resistant mosquitoes in Sri Lanka• TB• Improved Travel