[Report 1953] / Medical Officer of Health, Caerphilly U.D.C.

  • Caerphilly (Wales). Urban District Council.
Date:
1953
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Credit: [Report 1953] / Medical Officer of Health, Caerphilly U.D.C. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    5 Caerphilly Urban District Council. Annual Report of the Medical Officer of Health. Public Health Department Councillor Offices CAERPHILLY To the Chairman and Members of the Caerphilly Urban District Council. LADIES and GENTLEMEN, In accordance with the instructions of the Ministry of Health I herewith beg to submit my Annual Report for the year 1953. As judged by the vital statistics, the health of the community is good. The number of notifiable diseases, excluding whooping cough and measles was 53, whilst the latter accounted for 589 notified. The notifications of tuberculosis of all kinds numbered 53 for this year, with 4 deaths from pulmonary tuberculosis and Nil from non- pulmonary tuberculosis. The birthrate remained consistently high at 20.11 per thousand population and the death rate low at 9.27 per thousand population. As will be seen from the table later on in this report, this compares with a birth rate of 16.37 and death rate of 11.94 for all urban districts in the country. The diseases causing death in early life are constantly dim- inishing. The statistics show that the main causes of death are cardio- vascular disease between the ages of 50-60 years and cancer. Death from pneumonia is an extremely rare event owing to the use of anti- biotics. The infant mortality rate for the Urban Area of Caerphilly i.e. children under 1 year is 36.73 per thousand live births. The figures for the Administrative County are 29.10 and for England and Wales 26.8. The comparable neo-natal rate, i.e. for children under four weeks is 19.33 per thousand live births for the County and 17.7 for England and Wales as a whole. Compared with the Administrative County and England and Wales as a whole, the infant mortality rate for Children under 1 year is still too high. This figure is the best index of social well-being. The number of deaths of children under one year per thousand live births for the Borough of Barry is 30.26 and Cardiff Rural Council 16.56 and Mountain Ash 24. 76, areas of comparable populations. It will thus be realised that there is no reason for complacence in this matter. The further increase in factories in this area points to its in- creasing prosperity. This shows the area is no longer an exclusivelv mining community but now possesses numbers of light industries and industrial undertakings which augur well for the future.