[Report 1967] / Medical Officer of Health, Watford U.D.C. / Borough.

  • Watford (England). Urban District Council.
Date:
1967
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0)

Credit: [Report 1967] / Medical Officer of Health, Watford U.D.C. / Borough. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    14/68 (page 10)
    DEATHS Watford's deaths for the year were 869 as compared with 882 for the previous year and representing a rate of 11.4 as compared with 11.6. The area comparability factor by which Watford's rate has to be multiplied to make it comparable with that for England and Wales is 0.95, which indicates that at the older ages Watford has rather more population proportionately than England and Wales. When multiplied by this factor Watford's death rate is 10. 8 as compared with a provisional death rate for England and Wales for 1967 of 11.2. DISCUSSION OF DEATHS The 869 deaths listed according to the abbreviated list of the International Classification of Diseases, and divided by sex, and by age into eleven age groups, are shown in the following table. It will be seen that the main causes of death are cancer, which was responsible for 187 deaths or 21.5% of the total .coronary heart disease, which was responsible for 174 deaths, or 20.0% of the total, vascular lesions of the nervous system, which were responsible for 148 deaths, or 17.0% of the total, and heart disease other than coronary and hypertensive heart disease, which was responsible for 62 deaths, or 7.2% of the total. These four causes were responsible for 571 deaths or 65.7% of the total. Lung cancer is almost entirely preventable by not taking up smoking and very considerably reduced by giving it up. Cancer of the neck of the womb can be prevented by regular microscopic examination of smears of mucosal tissue obtained by scraping, followed by the appropriate treatment where these show the presence of a precancerous state, as this form of cancer remains in a precancerous state for a number of years. A clinic for the taking of smears has now been set up by the Local Health Authority but the shortage of technicians employed by the Regional Hospital Board to read these smears is such that the waiting list has increased by a month for every month that the clinic has been open. Coronary heart disease and vascular lesions of the nervous system all come under the general category of degenerative vascular disease, and evidence is steadily accumulating that the increase in degenerative vascular disease in privileged western communities is due to excess consumption of carbohydrate and animal and dairy fat. Heart disease other than coronary and hypertensive heart disease consists largely of degenerative heart disease with rheumatic heart disease as the next most important component. Most of degenerative heart disease is old age (40 of the 62 deaths from other heart disease or 64. 5% were in persons aged 75 and over) and nothing can be done about preventing old age. However, the Registrar General frowns on old age as a cause of death on a death certificate and the importance of heart disease other than coronary disease is exaggerated as a result. Rheumatic heart disease is prevented by permanent prophylactic treatment with penicillin or sulphonamide of all who have had rheumatic fever.