ENGLISH DEATH-RATE

Evening Post, Volume CXIX, Issue 98, 27 April 1935, Page 11

ENGLISH DEATH-RATE

EFFECT OF OVERCROWDING

INFANTILE MORTALITY

Some remarkable facts on the relation between the death-rate and housing conditions in England are .given in the Registrar-General's Statistical Review lor 1932, states the "Manchester Guardian." ,■■■■■■ It is noted that although the infantile death-rate has fallen all over the country there is still considerable geographical divergence in its incidence) Take the number of childrep who, on the census figures of 1931, might be expected to survive the first five years of childhood. In the South-east outside Greater London 94 per cent, of the children born could expect survival. In the South-west- and East nearly 93 per cent; in,■ Greater London per cent. In Durham and Northumberland the percentage was little" over 86, and in the other regions of the North and in South Wales it ranged about 88 or 89 per cent. • . Of each 1000 children born 45 more may expect to die within five years of birth in the; North than in the South —118 instead of 73. The births in the North numbered 215,051 in 1931, so that if [these children could be subjected to the Southern death-rates almost 10,000 more in each year would have the expectation of reaching five years than under conditions pertaining to the.North. NORTH AND SOUTH. It is commonly supposed, says the report, that the descending progression of mortality rates from North-to South, especially noticeable in childhood, is partly the result of climate and partly1 of the impact of differing industrial conditions upon the children's health, acting directly through the accompanying housing environment and. indirectly through the social constitution of the, population which provides the children's parentage. Mortality from all causes at ages under five is seen to. increase with greater overcrowding, so that towns with 9 to 18 per cent, of, the population: overcrowded show mortalities half as great again as the towns with less than 3 per cent, overcrowded. The bronchitis and pneumonia rates are from two to three times greater, and this is also true of measles and whooping-cough. The report suggests that the northward increase in mortality is mainly attributable to |wo factors—(l) greater crowding of the population as measured by persons per room, with the accompanying social and economic disadvantages and the increased danger of "droplet" and other infections; and (2) the effect of diminished solar radiation, with which may go a higher degree of atmospheric impurity, on the mortality of children from the less obvious manifestations or sequelae of rickets. Infant deaths under one year of age to each 1000 born averaged in the three years 1930 to 1932 57.6 in the county boroughs having densities of less than 0.7 persons per room, but increased with the density per room to 92.7, in the towns having more than 1.15 persons per room. Expressed in another way, the rate was 57.1 in the large towns with less than 3 per cent, of their population living more than 2 per room, increasing to 81.6 in those towns with over 15 per cent, living under such conditions. The rates for urban and rural districts showed similar contrasts. The infant death-rate .from premature birth and injury at birth in 1931-32 was. 22.9 in the North, but only-16.8 in the South-east, the rates for the six regions following the reverse order of the amount of annual sunshine recorded, from 1226 hours, in the North to 1501 hours in the South-east. Deaths of children under five years of age from measles, whooping-cough, bronchitis, and pneumonia in the large towns were more affected by differences in the overcrowding rate in the towns than by the northerliness of their situation. This' was* also true of the general" death-rate at the school ages 5-15, and amongst people over bo. TUBERCULOSIS KATE. , Mortality from tuberculosis of the lungs for young adults aged 15-25 has declined since 1911 by 36 per' cent, for males and 24 per cent, for females In the large towns having average rates of less than 0.7 persons per room, but has increased by 25 per., cent, for young women in the group of towns having rates exceeding one person per room. Cancer death-rates in 1982 were below the yearly average for 1921-.JU amongst women between the. ages ot 35 and 75, and at these ages a definite decline in the risk of death from cancer seems to have set in. For men between 25 and 65 the rates in 1931 and 1932 suggest that a maximum has been reached, though at later ages the risk of dying from cancer, as represented by the record of cancer on death certificates, is still rising. A study of the effect of the seasons upon maternal mortality during 1925----30 shows that the risk of death from septic complications in the winter months was 15 per cent above the yearly average, and in the ■ summer months 13 per cent, below, an almost exactly similar seasonal change being shown by the risk of .death from mfections of the skin, .bones, ear, or other septic conditions. .