Abstract
I
tested whether men or women had a longer life expectancy during World
War I.
The women had a significant difference then the men during that era
(p=.02).
The women life expectancy was greater during the years of 1914-1918. I
concluded
that the 1918 influenza virus had a great impact on the population
during the
year of 1918-1919 (Taubenberger, Reid, and Fanning, 2005).
Introduction
In
the years of 1914-1918 there was the Great War, also known as World War
I.
There was also an epidemic sweeping the nation called the 1918
influenza virus.
During that era there were a lot of deaths among the people in the United States.
There were many people killed in World War I and by the 1918 influenza
virus. The
1918 influenza virus killed about 30 to 40 million people worldwide and
a total
of 675, 000 deaths in the U.S.
(Kreiser, 2006). There
was an increase in deaths among people
in the ages of 15-32 by the influenza virus. This dramatic increase of
deaths
decreased the life expectancy by ten years. The 1918 influenza attacked
young men
and women that worked in factories, cleaned streets and fought in wars
(Kreiser, 2006). There was a soldier training camp in Boston,
Massachusetts
that had more then 12,000 soldiers affected by the 1918 influenza virus
and 800
of the soldiers died from the virus (Taubenberger, Reid, and Fanning,
2005).
I
hypothesized that there would be an increase in life expectancy among
women
compared to men during that time period. Although the influenza virus
affected
everyone, the majority of the soldiers were men. The men that fought in
the war
also had a greater chance of getting the influenza virus and being
affected. I
am focused on finding out if there is a possibility that the different
occupations during that era, fighting in the war and the 1918 influenza
virus
had a significant difference on life expectancy.
Methods
I
collected data from the Catholic cemetery called Calvary in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
It is located at the corner of 60th and Bluemound Rd.
and it was founded in 1857.
I started my first data collection on October 20, 2007 and my second
data collection
on October 23, 2007. I gathered birthdates off of tombstones that
ranged from
1884- 1896. I recorded 60 headstones from both women and men, totaling
120
different birth years. I started from
the north part front of the cemetery to the east and west. I collected
a
portion of the data from the south end of the cemetery. I had
difficulty
reading some of the headstones because they were old so, I had to
record data
from different areas thorough out the cemetery. I
computed my results on Microsoft Excel using
a life history analysis and performed a (2-tailed) dependent t-test to
show if
there was a significant difference.
Fig.
1. Map of Calvary cemetery.
Results
There
is a significant difference in life expectancy among women and men
(fig. 2, p =
0.02). The life expectancy for women was longer than men during World
War I.
The life expectancy for women was greater then men from the ages of
1-59, then
it gradually decreased around the ages of 60-89. At the ages of 100-109
the
life expectancy for women had a higher increase then the men. From
looking at
the graph, the women between the ages of 1-49 had an approximately a 10
year
increase then the men.
Fig
2.
Life expectancy between men and women during
WWI.
Discussion
During the years of 1914-1918 the U.S.
has dealt
with WWI and an epidemic that killed over 600,000 people. People were
dying
because of their immune system was producing an increase of immune
cells in the
lungs (Brownlee, 2006). During this era
scientist and doctors assumed that the 1918 influenza was caused by a
bacteria,
but found out it was caused by a virus in 1933 (Kreiser, 2006). When
the 1918
influenza outbreak occurred many people died because there was no
medicine
available at that time and the symptoms occurred rapidly. World War I
also had
an impact on the U.S.
because there were many soldiers that died because of the war and the
1918
influenza (Billings,
1997). My results supported my hypothesis that there would be a higher
life
expectancy in women during WWI then in men. Some changes that I would
make for
future research is that I would gather data from different cemeteries
to get an
overview of how WWI and the 1918 influenza has effected the nation
during that
time period.
References
Billings,
M. (1997), The Influenza Pandemic of 1918. Retrieved 10/18/07,
from http://www.standford.edu/group/virus/uda
Taubenberger,
J., Ried, H. and Fanning, T. (2005). Capturing
a Killer Flu Virus. Scientific
American, 292 (1), 62-71. Retrieved December 2, 2007 from Ebscohost
database.
Kreiser,
C. (2006). The Enemy Within. American History (41) 5,
22-29. Retrieved December 2, 2007 from
Ebscohost database.
Brownlee,
C. (2006). The Bad Fight. Science News, (170) 5,
211-212. Retrieved December 2, 2007 from Ebscohost database.