How are mortality rates affected by population density?

TL;DR

This study investigates how population density influences mortality rates, revealing a decrease in young age-group death rates with increasing density up to a threshold, and explores parallels with marital status effects on suicide.

Contribution

It provides new evidence of a density-related mortality effect in humans, especially among young age groups, and links this to social factors like marital status and the 'Stay alive' paradigm.

Findings

Young age-group death rates decrease with density up to 300 inhabitants/km².

Density effect observed across Canada, France, Japan, and the US.

Parallel between density effect and marital status effect on suicide rates.

Abstract

Biologists have found that the death rate of cells in culture depends upon their spatial density. Permanent "Stay alive" signals from their neighbours seem to prevent them from dying. In a previous paper (Wang et al. 2013) we gave evidence for a density effect for ants. In this paper we examine whether there is a similar effect in human demography. We find that although there is no observable relationship between population density and overall death rates, there is a clear relationship between density and the death rates of young age-groups. Basically their death rates decrease with increasing density. However, this relationship breaks down around 300 inhabitants per square kilometre. Above this threshold the death rates remains fairly constant. The same density effect is observed in Canada, France, Japan and the United States. We also observe a striking parallel between the density effect and the so-called marital status effect in the sense that they both lead to higher suicide rates and are both enhanced for younger age-groups. However, it should be noted that the strength of the density effect is only a fraction of the strength of the marital status effect. In spite of the fact that this parallel does not give us an explanation by itself, it invites us to focus on explanations that apply to both effects. In this light the "Stay alive" paradigm set forth by Prof. Martin Raff appears as a natural interpretation. It can be seen as an extension of the "social ties" framework proposed at the end of the 19th century by the sociologist Emile Durkheim in his study about suicide.