Robert Bourbeau

• PhD in Demography
• Professor Emeritus at Université de Montréal

The COVID-19 pandemic caused significant changes in mortality patterns, which have implications for the measurement, interpretation, and comparison of cause-specific mortality trends. So far, the majority of studies have focused either on excess mortality, which disregards causes of death, or on cause-specific mortality based exclusively on the und...

The COVID-19 pandemic caused significant changes in mortality patterns, which have implications for the measurement, interpretation, and comparison of cause-specific mortality trends. So far, the majority of studies have focused either on excess mortality, which disregards causes of death, or on cause-specific mortality based exclusively on the und...

The recent decrease in adult and late-life mortality led to a very rapid increase in the number of centenarians within low mortality countries. This chapter examines the increase in the number of centenarians in Quebec (Canada) across birth cohorts (1871–1901), and outlines some of the underlying demographic mechanisms involved. We study the demogr...

The U.S. elderly experience shorter lifespans and greater variability in age at death than their Canadian peers. In order to gain insight on the underlying factors responsible for the Canada-U.S. old-age mortality disparities, we propose a cause-of-death analysis. Accordingly, the objective of this paper is to compare levels and trends in cause-spe...

The authors would like to correct the second sentence of the abstract to read: "First, we use Lexis surfaces based on Serfling models to highlight influenza mortality patterns as well as to identify lingering effects of early-life exposure to specific influenza virus subtypes (e.g., H1N1, H3N2)."

This study examines the roles of age, period, and cohort in influenza mortality trends over the years 1959–2016 in the United States. First, we use Lexis surfaces based on Serfling models to highlight influenza mortality patterns as well as to identify lingering effects of early-life exposure to specific influenza virus subtypes (e.g., H1N1, H3N2)....

Baby boomers’ mortality has been deteriorated or stagnated, compared to the secular trend. Recent studies claimed that the excess mortality of boomers has been due to suicides, accidental overdoses and other external causes. We found most of the boomer’s mortality disadvantage, regardless of race/ethnicity, is related to causes of death linked to...

Recent outbreaks of H5, H7, and H9 influenza A viruses in humans have served as a vivid reminder of the potentially devastating effects that a novel pandemic could exert on the modern world. Those who have survived infections with influenza viruses in the past have been protected from subsequent antigenically similar pandemics through adaptive immu...

Suicide mortality is an important and overlooked consequence of political and criminal violence in Colombia between 1980 and 2015. The results show that the highest increases of suicide for both sexes occurred during the period dominated by political violence (1995-2009). Furthermore, armed conflict seems to have strong short-term effects on mal...

The structure of causes of death in Canada has been changing since the onset of the “cardiovascular revolution.” While mortality due to cardiovascular diseases has been declining, mortality due to other causes of death, such as cancers and Alzheimer’s disease has been increasing. Our research investigates how these changes have re-modeled life expe...

Plusieurs études démontrent l’existence d’une association entre la mortalité et le statut socioéconomique : les personnes appartenant aux catégories sociales les plus favorisées ont une mortalité plus faible que celles appartenant aux catégories défavorisées. Les données nécessaires à ce type d’analyse ne sont pas toujours disponibles et des études...

Background The longevity gains recorded in high-income countries since the 1960s are mainly due to a reduction in mortality from chronic degenerative diseases, which particularly affect older individuals. In recent years the adult modal age at death (M) gained increasing recognition as a lifespan indicator for monitoring improvements in old-age sur...

In the past 90 years, remarkable progress was made in substantially improving survival and longevity in Canada, establishing it as a member of today’s group of very low mortality countries. We use several demographic indicators of all-cause and cause-specific mortality to illustrate the nature of these major advances throughout the life span. Revie...

En tenant compte des différences d’effectif et de répartition par âge de la population, le Québec enregistrait un taux de mortalité routière de 12 à 50 % supérieur à l’Ontario durant les années 2000 à 2010. Durant la même période, le Québec a aussi connu un taux de morbidité grave sur les routes de 35 à 80 % supérieur à celui de l’Ontario. Ces écar...

Le but de cette contribution est double. D’une part, elle propose une stratégie d’évaluation comparative permettant d’identifier les facteurs responsables de l’écart entre les bilans routiers de différentes juridictions. D’autre part, cette stratégie est appliquée afin de document les raisons pouvant expliquer l’écart entre les bilans routiers du Q...

The worldwide spread of a novel influenza A (H1N1) virus in 2009 showed that influenza remains a significant health threat, even for individuals in the prime of life. This paper focuses on the unusually high young adult mortality observed during the Spanish flu pandemic of 1918. Using historical records from Canada and the U.S., we report a peak of...

The literature provides increasing empirical support for the idea that early-life experiences can greatly shape someone's future health and longevity. Besides shared early-life conditions, within-family variation in maternal age at time of childbirth and birth order have been found to be related to later-life survival. In this study, we examine whe...

The Family Connection in Exceptional Longevity THE DRAMATIC INCREASE IN LIFE EXPECTANCY during the past century is unprecedented in human history. But despite these spec-tacular advances, we still have limited knowledge of what factors lead to survival in old age. Anyone seeking to understand the determinants of longevity should look first at famil...

Over the last ten years, the modal age at death has become a focus of research on human longevity, notably because it provides information about the most frequent adult age at death without being influenced by mortality conditions at early ages. Little is known about levels and trends in adult modal age at death in historical populations. The Regis...

Longevity runs in families, either through genetic or environmental influences. Using Quebec civil registration and historical Canadian censuses, we compared the longevity of siblings and spouses of 806 centenarians to a group of controls, all born in Quebec at the turn of the 20th century. Our results show that siblings of centenarians, who share...

The Most Frequent Adult Length of Life in the Eighteenth Century: The Experience of the French-Canadians Over the last ten years, the modal age at death has become a focus of research on human longevity, notably because it provides information about the most frequent adult age at death without being influenced by mortality conditions at early ages....

This paper examines adult and old-age mortality differentials in Canada between 1930 and 2007 at the provincial level, using the Canadian Human Mortality Database and the flexible smoothing P-spline method in two-dimensions well-suited to the study of small populations. Our analysis reveals that provincial disparities in adult mortality in general,...

English Over the last ten years, the modal age at death has become a focus of research on human longevity, notably because it provides information about the most frequent adult age at death without being influenced by mortality conditions at early ages. Little is known about levels and trends in adult modal age at death in historical populations. T...

Plusieurs études montrent que les conditions de vie vécues dans l’enfance peuvent avoir un effet à long terme sur la santé et la mortalité. Cette niche n’ayant pas été explorée pour la population canadienne, nous avons mis sur pied un projet visant le jumelage du recensement canadien de 1901 et des actes de décès de l’état civil québécois dans le b...

As has happened in other developed countries with low mortality, Canada has seen a dramatic increase in the numbers of very old persons in its population, with a multiplication in the number of centenarians, and the concomitant emergence of supercentenarians. The extent of the phenomenon is, however, difficult to assess. On the one hand, because of...

Since the beginning of the 20th century, mortality has substantially declined in most countries. However, this decline has been quite different between women and men. In Canada, sex differential in life expectancy at birth was about two years at the beginning of the century and reached more than seven years at the end of the 70's. Since then, the f...

After studying the epidemiologic transition’s situation in Canada, it is determined that the delimitation of temporal stages within the epidemiologic transition as put forward by Omran (1971, 1998), Olshansky and Ault (1986), Rogers and Hackenberg (1987) and Olshansky et al. (1998) does not suit the Canadian evolution. Many of the researchers’ post...

Le contact visuel est un des signes de l’interaction entre un piéton et un automobiliste. C’est une fonction importante de l’attention lorsque le piéton se prépare à traverser la voie publique à une intersection. Cette recherche présente les résultats d’une enquête menée au printemps 2001 sur le comportement des piétons à Montréal et à Toronto. Les...

As the number of observations is ineluctably small at the extreme ages, the exact level and patterns of mortality at the upper end of the life table are difficult to measure. The problem is often enhanced by errors in age declarations in official documents due to underestimation or exaggeration, attraction for some ages ending with particular digit...

The objective of the present study is to elaborate and validate a measurement which would allow us to identify the circumstances and levels of pedestrian exposure to the potential dangers of daily activity-travel patterns in the region of Montreal. A review of the literature led us to construct three simple models and a composite model of exposure...

According to a report by the Quebec Automobile Insurance Agency (SAAQ) published in 2001, bicyclists are more likely to be victims of automobile accidents in urban areas and they are particularly at risk in the City of Montreal. Several factors are advanced to explain the frequency with which bicyclists are involved in road accidents: their habits...

On a procede a une observation directe des comportements des pietons en traversee d'intersections urbaines en vue d'obtenir des informations sur leur respect des regles de securite. Cette etude a ete menee conjointement a Montreal (Quebec) et Toronto (Ontario) a fins de comparaison. Elle a concerne au total 3977 hommes et 3810 femmes. On se proposa...

Résumé Par l’entremise du Registre de la population du Québec ancien (RPQA), banque de données élaborée dans le cadre du Programme de recherche en démographie historique, nous avons observé l’existence d’une composante familiale de la longévité. En effet, l’âge au décès des parents semble influencer l’âge au décès de leurs fils et filles, particuli...

In this study we present an update of our work concerning pedestrians who have been the victims of road accidents in the metropolitan census regions of Montreal and Toronto. From 1995 to 1997 the adjusted rates of mortality are not different in the two cites. However, the adjusted rates for morbidity are statistically different for men and for wome...

Résumé Au cours du XX e siècle, la baisse de la mortalité s’est accompagnée d’un changement marqué de son profil selon l’âge et selon la cause. À une forte mortalité infantile a succédé une mortalité se produisant principalement chez les personnes âgées de 65 ans et plus. Cette amélioration notable de la survie aux jeunes âges, accompagnée d’un rep...

A research-team has investigated crossing activities of pedestrians at 10 signalized intersections located in Montreal and 10 signalized intersections in Toronto. This paper is concerned at determining the physical and environmental characteristics of signalized intersections and pedestrian behavior. The dependent variable was defined as whether or...

English The purposes of this paper is to compare mortality patterns in Canada to theUnited States and to other industrialised countries to give support to the existence of a "NorthAmerican Mortality Pattern" (NAMP), and to try to explain this pattern in the context of the specificfeatures of Canadian society. Using data from the WHO mortality data...

ABSTRACT The level and age trajectory of mortality at advanced,ages in Canada are not readily and exactly obtained, because of problems with the reliability of data on deaths and on population counts,beyond,a certain point in the official statistics. There are ways to assure nonetheless,the termination,of the life tables. One consists in finding wa...

The environment and circumstances of the accidents and the characterstics of the persons involved in the fatal pedestrian automobile accidents, in the city of Montreal, in the year 1995-1997, were discussed. Three component models, including the characterstics of the environment at the locus of the environment, characterstics related to the driver...

Résumé Au cours de la deuxième moitié du XX e siècle, la mortalité aux grands âges (80 ans et plus) s’est singularisée au Canada par son faible niveau eu égard à d’autres pays développés comparables (plusieurs pays européens et le Japon). Une des hypothèses souvent avancées pour expliquer ce phénomène est la sélection d’immigrants en bonne santé, é...

The main purposes of this paper is to evaluate the quality of Canadian data among the oldest-old (80+) over the 1951-1995 period, and to compare estimations of Canadian probabilities of death based on the extinct generation method with those of other developed countries in order to ascertain whether Canada experiences a distinct low mortality profi...

RÉSUMÉ Le syndrome de mort subite du nourrisson (SMSN) étant un diagnostic d'exclusion, plusieurs éléments peuvent influencer le dénombrement exact des cas et, en conséquence, la connaissance des facteurs de risque demeure incertaine. Cet article présente, en premier lieu, une brève revue des études sur le SMSN. Par la suite, une attention spéciale...

RÉSUMÉ Les projections démographiques permettent de prévoir le profil des victimes de la route et des conducteurs impliqués dans des accidents corporels au cours des vingt prochaines années et de mieux planifier les programmes de prévention et les services de soins requis par ces victimes. En 2016, le nombre de victimes de la route pourrait atteind...

Since the beginning of the twentieth century, important transformations have occurred in the age-at-death distribution within human populations. We propose a flexible nonparametric smoothing approach based on P-splines to refine the monitoring of these changes. Using data from the Human Mortality Database for four low mortality countries, namely Ca...

Cette étude portait sur les taux de respect de la signalisation chez les piétons et les cyclistes selon les caractéristiques des individus et de l’environnement.

PIP: "Using cluster analysis, groupings of countries can be made on the basis of the level of violent death, its age-composition and its causes. It is possible to show that some countries with heavy and with light burdens of violent death have characteristic profiles of mortality according to age and cause of death. For example, surmortality in som...

The aim of this paper is to explore mortality in Quebec during the nineteenth century from a demographic perspective. During the nineteenth century, there was excess urban mortality in various countries; in order to identify such mortality differentials, we compared mortality indicators for the province of Quebec and then for the urban areas of Mon...

Violent death varies substantially according to age, reflecting the riskfactors which confront individuals at different stages in their lives.International comparison of the age-distribution of deaths by violence showsgreat variation from one region to another. Using cluster analysis, groupingsof countries can be made on the basis of the level of v...

Les députés québécois constituent une sous-population sélectionnée du point de vue des caractéristiques socio-démographiques et ils devraient, en conséquence, être favorisés quant à leurs chances de survie. Cette hypothèse est testée auprès des 1 455 députés nés à partir de 1800 et élus à l'une des instances du pouvoir législatif au Bas-Canada, au...

A comparative analysis of injury mortality in 24 developed countries during the period 1985-1989 shows the importance of this cause of death among the elderly. One out of four men and one out of two women who dies from injury is aged 65 and over. There is an over-representation of the elderly among injury-relaled deaths and the risk of death is sti...

Résumé Bourbeau (Robert), Émond (Valérie). - Caractéristiques socio-démographiques et mortalité des députés québécois aux XIXe et XXe siècles : une analyse par génération Les députés québécois constituent une sous-population sélectionnée du point de vue des caractéristiques socio-démographiques et ils devraient, en conséquence, être favorisés quant...

A comparative analysis of injury mortality in 24 developed countries during the period 1985–1989 shows the importance of this cause of death among the elderly. One out of four men and one out of two women who dies from injury is aged 65 and over. There is an over-representation of the elderly among injury-related deaths and the risk of death is sti...

This article, part of a recently completed research project on safety belts, presents results on neck injuries. A total of 3927 injured front-seat occupants (drivers and passengers) involved in two-car crashes were studied. Among them, 725 sustained neck sprains (ICD-9 code 847.0); some of them may have sustained other injuries as well. The more se...

A comparative analysis of crude death rates and specifically of deaths from violence was conducted for a large number of developed and developing countries which provide data to the World Health Organization's data bank. For these countries, the analysis shows, first of all, that violent deaths rank third among the major causes of death, after dise...

In this study we analyze the dmographic and geographical distribution of pedestrian accidents (n=28,452) in the Quebec Municipalités régionales de comté (MRC) reported between January 1, 1983 and December 31, 1988. In order to be able to make comparisons between MRCs, we have created in Comparative Mortality Index and a Comparative Morbidity Index....

In Canadian Provinces and in several states of the United States the minimal legal age to drive a motor vehicle is 16 years old and in some, it is 15. The excess mortality and morbidity registered by 15 to 24-year-old drivers is well known. Several studies have reported that accident rates decrease with experience, but the effect of the age of new...

"During the 1981-1986 period, the balance between demographic phenomena was such that the proportion of francophones in the population tended to increase in Quebec. In this article, we project the 1981-1986 situation and other scenarios to see the impact of increasing immigration on the proportion of francophones in Quebec. The results suggest that...

RÉSUMÉ Durant la période 1981-1986, l'équilibre des phénomènes démographiques au Québec était tel que la proportion de francophones avait tendance à s'accroître. Cet article projette cette situation ainsi que d'autres scénarios, et montre l'impact d'un accroissement de l'immigration sur le pourcentage de francophones au Québec. Il souligne, pour le...

Data furnished by the Régie de l'Assurance Automobile du Québec (RAAQ) were used to describe the geography of motor vehicle accidents in the province of Quebec for the period 1983-1988. These were also used to evaluate the risk factors associated with zones of high risk with regards to accidents for the 97 Municipalités Régionales de Comté (MRC). T...

Geography of Mortality by Road Accidents in Quebec, 1983-1988. Mortality by road accidents is a theme which is little studied in health geography, for different reasons. One of them concerns data margin and reliability. Since 1980, the quality of the data issued by the Car Insurance Company in Quebec favored the increase of the number of the surv...

PIP: Mortality and fertility differences in the Canadian province of Quebec for 1976 and 1981 are analyzed using data from official Canadian and Quebec sources, supplemented by other sources for 1976. Separate consideration is given to the French-speaking, the English-speaking, and those speaking other languages as their first language. The results...

RÉSUMÉ Depuis 1975, on peut obtenir, pour le Québec, la distribution des décès selon la langue d’usage, et celle des naissances selon la langue maternelle et la langue d’usage de la mère. Il a ainsi été possible de construire des tables de mortalité abrégées, selon le sexe et la langue d’usage (francophones, anglophones, allophones). Les résultats...

The Level and Impact of Road Accident Fatalities in North America, 1960-1982 Road traffic accidents are an important public health problem in North America. From 1960 to 1982, these accidents were responsible for an average of 55,000 deaths per year. An analysis of trends in road accident fatality rates during the period 1960-1982 reveals two main...

PIP: Recent trends in mortality from suicide in the province of Quebec, Canada, are analyzed. It is noted that mortality from this cause has increased since the early 1960s and that this rise is the highest among all Canadian provinces. A particular increase in suicide among younger people is noted; furthermore, suicide seems to be increasing with...

RÉSUMÉ Le suicide constitue une cause de décès de plus en plus importante au Québec; près de 1 000 décès par suicide ont été enregistrés en 1979. En fait, la hausse du suicide a véritablement débuté au début des années soixante; pendant la période 1961-1976, le risque global de décès par suicide a connu une progression de 50 % chez les hommes et a...

PIP: The authors examine the validity of data from the Canadian census for estimating international emigration, with particular reference to estimates by language group. Using the method of residual estimation on official Canadian data, they calculate a negative estimate of -35,848 Anglophones emigrating from Quebec over the period 1971-1976. They...

RÉSUMÉ Le recensement du Canada est soumis principalement à des erreurs de dénombrement et de déclaration. Ces erreurs interviennent de façon importante lors de l’estimation de l’émigration internationale par des méthodes résiduelles, plus particulièrement dans le cas d’estimations selon le groupe linguistique. Pour la période 1971-1976, les auteur...

Data on 1008 Quebec road victims obtained from linkage of governmental records have led to different types of analyses. This article presents an application of correspondence analysis to these data. We have chosen one example with its specific results showing expected associations between variables and new, unexpected associations which are plausib...

Increases in adult mortality after age 45 are examined using a Monte Carlo-type simulation model based on data for Norwegian generations from 1866 to 1916. "In this model, the observed mortality of a generation depends upon two variables: 1) the risk of dying in the mortality strata for each individual at a certain time; 2) the level of deteriorati...

RÉSUMÉ L’estimation des mouvements migratoires par le biais de soldes migratoires conduit à faire porter sur cette mesure tout le poids des erreurs attachées aux différentes composantes utilisées (population et événements). Une erreur relative sur une composante dont l’effectif est important a un impact plus grand sur une mesure résiduelle qu’une e...

RÉSUMÉ Le premier volet de notre recherche pour le compte du Conseil de la langue française porte sur la situation des groupes linguistiques au Québec et sur les mécanismes de leur renouvellement. Notre étude a surtout porté sur l’ensemble du Québec pour la période 1966-1976. Nous avons cependant fait le même genre d’étude, quoique moins élaborée,...

RÉSUMÉ Il est admis que les résultats des recensements canadiens sont entachés d’un certain sous-dénombrement, plus ou moins important, suivant les années et les sous-groupes. Pour le Québec, Statistique Canada diffuse des estimations de ce sous-dénombrement pour certains grands groupes d’âge en 1976 et uniquement pour l’ensemble de la population e...

Like many industrialized countries, Canada is experiencing significant population aging and this phenomenon, inherited from the demographic transition, will intensify in the coming years. Mortality changes, especially at older ages, will contribute greatly to this phenomenon, hence the importance to be aware of the latest and forthcoming developmen...