[Report 1960] / Medical Officer of Health, Beverley Borough.

  • Beverley (England). Borough Council. nb2013018795.
Date:
1960
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Credit: [Report 1960] / Medical Officer of Health, Beverley Borough. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    to follow-up and have often been in close contact with the patient. Protection against tuberculosis by means of B.C.G. vaccination is now offered to all school children between 10 and 18 years of age, as part of the County Council immu- nisation programme. Immunisation and Vaccination Vaccination against poliomyelitis has continued and the majority of people under 40 years of age who were immunised in the early stages of this work have now received their third dose of vaccine. It is now possible for all those over 40 to be immunised against poliomyelitis but this must be done by their family doctor. All babies attending Infant Welfare Clinics throughout the area are offered immunisation against diphtheria, whooping cough, tetanus and smallpox, and children in schools are given boosting doses of diphtheria vaccine at 5 and 10 years of age; this is most important in order to maintain immunity against diphtheria. Community Health Mortality statistics have in the past been used as a measure of the health of the community. The Infant Mortality Rate was considered to be a good index of the general health and hygienic circumstances of any area. However death rates by themselves are not now a satisfactory index of health and, in my opinion, it will be necessary sooner or later to compile morbidity statistics in more detail so that the specific causes of illness and absences from work can be ascertained. A survey carried out by the College of General Prac- titioners in 1955/56 revealed that bronchitis, rheumatism, arthritis and common colds were the conditions that most often required treatment by the family physician, and also that psycho-neurotic disorders were very important among the causes of morbidity in the community as a whole. Informa- tion of this nature is really necessary if steps are to be taken to assess the state of health of the people in any particular area, but at the present time detailed statistical information on these lines is not available through official sources. Among the younger members of the population, violence and accidents have become responsible for almost half the deaths of young men, and are taking an increasing toll among the older population. It has also been noted that over the past 30 years the male death rate is consistently higher than the female death rate, and the rate of improvement is males less than the corres-