BIRTH AND DEATH RATES

Bay of Plenty Times, Volume LXX, Issue 13671, 19 June 1942, Page 6

BIRTH AND DEATH RATES

FIRST TWO YEARS OF WAR

SOME INTERESTING FACTS

"One result of the war has boon the enforced absence of the Regis-trar-General's annual stocktaking of the nation's health and well-being as measured by birth-rates and deathrates. His last report relates to the year 19 3S and many workers, liesides the professional statisticians interested in public health and allied subjects, have felt keenly the loss of data at a time when measures of the population's reactions to favourable and unfavourable factors are especially wanted. Fortunately the Registrar-General has lately found it possible to add to his quarterly return a new table which shows the trend of mortality since 1938 from 3t> causes of death of special interest in time of war." says the Lancet. "The general mortality has. of course, been affected by bombing, though not to the extent that was expected —some 4 0,0 0 0 deaths in roughly a year is an addition of approximately 10 per cent, to the normal death-rate of the country as a whole. Deduction of these and other deaths due to violence gives a measure of the war-time course of fatal disease, and reveals a reasonably satisfactory position. "In the first quarter of both 19 10 and 19 41 mortality was relatively high, but both years had severe winters superimposed on any special war effects. The second quarter of 1940 was normal in its death-rate, while that of 1941 shows a very slight rise. The third and fourth quarters show no significant change except, it is good to note, an unusually low rate in the third quarter of 1941 .

"Underlying this general picture we have on the debit side of the account a decided increase in death from respiratory tuberculosis about 6 per cent, in the first year of war, ten per cent, in the second year and affecting - both sexes; an increase in other forms of tuberculosis, mainly tuberculous meningitis, later in appearing but then rising proportionately more than the respiratory type (2.4 per cent, increase in the first year and 17.6 per cent, in the second year); and the large increase, as in the last war, of mortality from cerebro-spinal fever, from which the recorded deaths in each year (mid--1939 to mid-19 40, and mid-19 40 to mid-1941) were for both sexes approximately four times the pre-war levels.

"Relating deaths to notifications gives a fatality from this cause in 1940-41 of just over 2 0 per cent, for civilians and less than 10 per cent, for non-civilians —a great reduction on the old-time 5 0-6 0 per cent. On the other hand, despite the new therapy, mortality from pneumonia shows no decline. Like that of bronchitis the pneumonia-rate was doubtless affected by the severe winters and possibly by the effects of air-raid conditions on old people. It is said to see that, even excluding war casualties the usual annual low record for infant mortality is absent. The first four quarters of the war show an average rise of 2 and the second four an average rise of 6J in the rate per 1.000 live births. There has also been some increase in mortality from pernicious anaemia and a substantial rise in deaths from ulcer of the stomach and duodenum. "On the credit side there is a continuous and large decline in deaths from acute rheumatic fever and a distinct fall in mortality due to streptococcal and pyogenic infections—scarlet fever, erysipelas, ear and mastoid disease and appendicitis —and exophthalmic goitre. "Maternal mortality likewise shows a substantial improvement and, more unexpectedly, the incidence of stilbirths has been relatively low., Diabetes so far reveals little change, but in 1914-18 it did not decline until the third year of the war. It is interesting to note the distinct decline in suicide especially among women.

"In the birth-rate there has been a sudden drop in the third quarter of 1940 and a continued low rate up to the end of the record with an S-10 per cent., reduction in the second and third quarters of 1941. "This is a relatively smaller decline than in the comparable period of the last war, when the birth-rate fell by 14 per cent .in the third quarter of 1915 and broadly continued with that rate of fall till the third quarter of 1916. A lower birth-rate is inevitable in war and the slightly lower probability of survival in infancy is therefore all the more unfortunate. "Infant mortality and deaths from tuberculosis are looked upon as the best indices of the state of social well-being. So far the increases in

_ _____ rtt spect^'^l exacts."