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Demography is usually defined as the study of human populations - their size, growth, density and distribution - and statistics regarding birth, marriage, disease and death. Demographers have often suffered from 'identity' crises when trying to locate themselves within a scientific discipline. By nature, demography is a multidisciplinary subject, which emphasises rigorous data analysis using specific methods accompanied by theory that is often associated with sociology, statistics, anthropology, economics and public health, among others. According to some scholars, health demography has become a discipline in its own right (Pol and Thomas, 2001).
Undoubtedly, demography's major contribution to health policy comes from the study of population dynamics in the form of the determinants of fertility, mortality and migration. Within these areas of study, demographers have often been involved in the analysis of family dynamics, kinship effects and child development. In the study of mortality, demographers are usually more concerned with its implications for overall population size and structure, and consequently tend to ignore rare causes of death.
What is sometimes less clear is how demographers contribute to health policy debates. The aim of this article is to stress how a correct understanding of population dynamics is vital for health policy and planning. The article first highlights some of the major contributions demographers have made to debates about health, particularly where they have helped to overcome misconceptions. It then discusses, in more depth, two issues that I believe to be among the most prominent in these debates: population ageing in the developed world and population growth in developing countries.
Demographers and health
Health policy development involves three stages: identifying the major disease problems, designing health care systems and defining what governments can do using the full range of policy instruments (Jamison and Mosley, 1991). Coherent health policies need to be strong in all three areas. Demographers have been crucial in the first stage, since population changes are a key component of changing health needs. Demographic analysis looks at behavioural changes in the population and how these might change a population's structure (age) and composition (gender, race, and so on) in the medium and long term. Demographers have also helped in developing public health programmes and designing instruments to monitor and evaluate...