Current vital statistics: methods and interpretation.

Abstract

In the United Kingdom we are fortunate in having systems for medical statistics that in many respects are more comprehensive than those of other countries.Both the statistics and their use depend on their being accepted and promoted by the medical professions.Most national medical statistics are managed by the Office of Population Censuses and Surveys (OPCS).1One of the main functions of its medical statistics division is developing and exploiting statistical systems by which to analyse the changing state of health of the nation.In this paper I discuss some general principles and recent statistics. Decline in mortalityThe death rates for 1900-75 by generations (fig 1) declined con- sistently between successive five-year cohorts2 for ages up to about 40, with two exceptions.The first is during 1914-8 world war, when there was a severe influenza pandemic that struck mainly at young people.The second exception is that girls aged 15-19 in the latest cohort had a higher death rate than had the previous cohort-the result of in- creased deaths from accidents.

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