[Report 1955] / Medical Officer of Health, Aberdeen City.

  • Aberdeen (Scotland). City Council.
Date:
1955
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Credit: [Report 1955] / Medical Officer of Health, Aberdeen City. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    explain why the infant death rate was falling in Aberdeen, rising in Dundee, and undergoing little change in Scotland as a whole. There is no evidence of any appreciable change in the social class distribution SOCIAL CLASS of the population. In the 1951 census, Aberdeen had a larger proportion of adult CHANGE. males in the poorest social class than had Edinburgh or Dundee or Scotland as a whole; the proportion was practically the same in Aberdeen and Glasgow, but if the second poorest social class was added, Aberdeen was in a less favourable position than Glasgow. Since then, there has been no large scale development of new industries or massive alteration of existing industries to change the social class structure in Aberdeen. Incidentally, the fact that the vital statistics of Aberdeen (e.g., infant death rate, still-birth rate, and tuberculosis death rate) are better than those of the other Scottish cities is the more remarkable in view of Aberdeen’s relatively unfavourable social class distribution. The improved figures cannot be attributed to an absence of unemployment or UNEMPLOY- of industrial disturbances. In 1954, unemployment in Aberdeen was described as EXPLANATION, “rather more than in most recent years;’’ and in 1955. although there was on the whole rather less unemployment in the City than in 1954, industrial dis- turbances were quite a prominent feature, e.g., the railway strike affected Aberdeen as well as other places, and the dispute in the trawling industry affected Aberdeen primarily. While one is anxious to pay generous tribute to the vigorous housing pro-HOUSING— gramme of recent years, the fact remains that, at the 1951 census, Aberdeen wasjxFLUENCE less favourably placed than the other Scottish cities in respect of the proportion ONLY, of households with such facilities as a piped water supply, a water closet, a kitchen sink, and cooking equipment; and more than one Aberdeen citizen in every eight was living under seriously overcrowded conditions (at more than two persons per room). To overcome these defects, a vigorous housing programme will be needed for a number of years. Better housing should in time help to improve the health of the people to such extent as its influence is not counteracted by less money being available for food—as a result of the larger rent usually payable by re-housed families, the higher cost of fuel and light, and (where the new house is on the outskirts of the City) the increased cost of travelling to work, &c. Anyway, while the housing programme may well have done something to advance the health of the public, Aberdeen is still striving to draw level in housing with the other cities, and improved housing of Aberdeen citizens in 1954 and 1955 cannot explain why the vital statistics are superior to those of cities that are better placed in respect of bousing. • No explanation is afforded by climatic conditions. 1954 was characterised by CLIMATIC a mild winter and a poor summer, and 1955 by a very severe winter and remarkably good summer; and, in each year, the vital statistics as a whole were EXPLANATION, considerably better than ever before,