In this week's PLoS Medicine, Cleusa Ferri of King's College London Institute of Psychiatry, UK and colleagues report on their investigation of mortality rates in over 12 000 people aged 65 years and over in Latin America, India, and China. The authors show that chronic diseases are the main causes of death, with stroke the leading cause in almost all sites studied, and that education has an important effect on mortality.
The authors state: "Our findings are important in informing priorities to improve health and reduce deaths in older people…Given the much higher absolute mortality rates among older people, efforts to ensure universal access to education should confer substantial health benefits for generations to come."
Source: Public Library of Science