This report is one in a series by the authors describing their work on the relationship between health and energy. Using cross-sectional as well as longitudinal data, the series examines the role of economic development in improving health. The national data used here extended over the period 1900 to 1975 and covered 99 percent of the world population.
Previous reports (PP-78-6, PP-78-7, RM-78-41) describe initial studies of the relationship between energy consumption, economic development, and health, and present data on infant mortality as it is influenced by development. Here, longevity from birth is used as the dependent variable. Unlike infant mortality, which represents death rates within a single age group, namely 0 to 1, longevity from birth is an aggregate of death rates at all ages. From both cross-sectional and longitudinal analyses which include a large number of independent variables, it is concluded that longevity is strongly influenced by development. Both per capita energy consumption and literacy show strong interactions with longevity, but approximately half of the improvements in the death rates that have occured since 1950 remain unexplained
