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1、小编给你一个美联英语官方免费试听课申请链接：http:/ 提供：影视英语 健康革命 人类最大的福祉The highest life expectancy recorded for women anywhere in the world has risen by a year every four years since 1840. This inexorable advance in longevity is, arguably, the most important of all the changes to human life in the past two centuries.自从 1
2、840 年以来，全球女性预期寿命的最高纪录每四年就增加一岁。人类在延长自身寿命方面的这种持续不断的进步，也许就是过去两个世纪人类生活所有变化中最重大的变化。These gains in health are also widely shared: “India today has a higher life expectancy than Scotland in 1945 in spite of a per-capita income that Britain had achieved as early as 1860.” This remark comes from a wonderful
3、book, The Great Escape: Health, Wealth, and the Origins of Inequality, by Princeton Universitys Angus Deaton, published last year, which documents the revolution in both health and wealth since the early 19th century. Of the two, the former is the more important. Who would not give up many material
4、comforts if, in return, they could avoid the agony of watching their children die or enjoy the company of their loved ones in old age?人类健康方面的进步也具有广泛性：“今日印度人的预期寿命高于 1945 年的苏格兰人，尽管在人均收入方面，英国早在 1860 年就达到了印度今日的水平。”这句话出自去年出版的一本精彩著作：逃离不平等：健康、财富及不平等的起源(The Great Escape: Health, Wealth, and the Origins of I
5、nequality)，作者是美国普林斯顿大学(Princeton University)的安格斯 狄顿(Angus Deaton)，书里讲述了自 19 世纪初以来人类健康和财富方面发生的革命。在这二者之中，前者更加重要。如果能够避免目睹孩子死去的悲痛，或者能够享有长寿父母的陪伴，谁不愿放弃更多物质享受来交换呢？No blessing is unmixed. Prolonged survival “sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything” is to be neither envied nor desired. Yet the rev
6、olution in health is still a blessing. As Professor Deaton notes: “Of all the things that make life worth living, extra years of life are surely among the most precious.” Someone whose standard of living is twice as high and expects to live twice as long as someone else could even be deemed to be fo
7、ur times better off.任何好事都不是纯粹的。延长“没有牙齿、没有视力，没有味觉，没有一切”的残生既不值得羡慕也不令人期望。然而健康革命仍是人类一大福祉。正如狄顿教授所说：“在所有让生活有价值的事物中，多活几年肯定属于最珍贵的那一类。”有些人生活水平高出常人一倍，并且预计要比别人多活一倍时间，人们大概可以认为，他们比常人幸福四倍。So what has happened?那么，人类的健康都发生了哪些变化呢？Start with mortality rates (deaths per thousands) over time of three of todays high-inc
8、ome countries: Sweden in 1751; the US in 1933; and the Netherlands and the US in 2000 (see chart). Back in 1751 the mortality rate of Swedish newborns was more than 160 per thousand people. It was more than 40 per thousand in the US in 1933. By 2000 it was below 10 per thousand. At subsequent ages m
9、ortality rates have become consistently lower over time, with the lowest rates of all for children aged about 10. Today we see a rise of mortality rates in the late teens, largely because of the riskier behaviour of young men. After a plateau in the late 20s and early 30s, death rates rise, but they
10、 do not reach 10 per thousand before age 60. US mortality rates are higher than those in the Netherlands, except for the over 80s. That is where the US concentrates its resources.首先来看看当今三个高收入国家人口死亡率（每千人死亡人数）不同年份的情况：1751 年的瑞典， 1933 年的美国，以及 2000 年的荷兰和美国（见右图）。1751 年瑞典新生儿死亡率超过 160 人/ 千人。1933 年美国新生儿死亡率超过
11、 40 人/千人，到了 2000年低于 10 人/ 千人。各年龄段儿童死亡率均在不断降低，其中 10 岁左右的儿童死亡率最低。我们看到较大年龄的少年死亡率现在有所上升，大部分是因为男孩子们的危险行为。在三十岁左右的年龄段经历了一段平台期后，死亡率又开始上升，但 60 岁以下死亡率不足 10 人 /千人。美国的死亡率比荷兰的高，但 80 岁以上年龄段例外，美国的医疗资源主要集中在这一年龄段中。Back in 1850 life expectancy was about age 40 in England and Wales. Today it is close to 80. In the cas
12、e of Italy it has risen from 30 in 1875 to above the English level. The chart also shows the devastating effects of the Spanish flu epidemic of 1918. This is explained by how life expectancy is computed: the assumption is that the risks of dying at a particular age are produced by the ages of death
13、of the population in a specific year. In 1918 a large proportion of young people died in the epidemic. This reduced life expectancy drastically. But those born in 1918 had far longer lives than these figures suggest. Similarly, a small proportion of the English and Welsh population actually died at
14、40 in 1850. Instead, a great many died aged as babies and many lived to be more than 60. Forty was merely the average age of death. Finally, notes Prof Deaton: “Saving the lives of children has a bigger effect on life expectancy than saving the lives of the elderly.” Thus, as death “ages”, the rise
15、in life expectancy slows.1850 年英格兰和威尔士的人口预期寿命在 40 岁左右，如今已接近 80 岁。意大利的人口预期寿命从 1875 年的 30 岁一路上升，直到高于英国水平。图表还显示了 1918 年西班牙流感的灾难性后果。这可以从预期寿命的计算方法得到解释，它假设某个年龄的死亡风险是由某年人口死亡年龄来决定的。1918 年有很大一部分比例的年轻人死于西班牙流感，导致预期寿命大大降低。但 1918 年出生的人寿命远高于图表所显示的年龄。同样地，1850 年英格兰和威尔士实际上只有一小部分人死于 40 岁，死亡人口中有许多是婴儿。还有很多人活到了 60 岁以上，4
16、0 岁只是平均死亡年龄。最后，狄顿教授指出：“在提高预期寿命方面，拯救儿童生命的作用远大于拯救老年人生命。”因此，随着死亡年龄提高，预期寿命上升减缓。The health revolution has spread worldwide since the middle of the 20th century dramatically so in east Asia; least so, alas, in sub-Saharan Africa partly because of HIV/Aids. A big element has been the collapse in child mortality. According to the Gapminder website, mortality among Indian children under five fell from 267 per thousand in 1950
