[Report 1951] / Medical Officer of Health, Scunthorpe Borough.

  • Scunthorpe (England). Borough Council
Date:
1951
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Credit: [Report 1951] / Medical Officer of Health, Scunthorpe Borough. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    33/90 page 31
    There are now 80 years of health reports for the town and it is interesting to look at the changing incidence of the ages of persons dying during the years. If this world were perfect and if every person lived their biblical span of three score years and ten, then the mortality rate for all the age groups up to 69 years would be nil and the mortality rate for the year 70 would be 100 per cent. Although this conception is both ideal and impossible, nevertheless the nearer it can be approached, the further can it be claimed that we have progressed along the road to ideal living conditions and the more successful has been our attack on all the multitude of influences which go to the cause of any premature death. The number of deaths in the various age groups for the 3’cars 1921, 1931, 1941 and 1951 has been taken from the Registrar- General’s figures for these years and has been reduced to percentage figures. These numbers and percentages are given in the table. They have been further re-grouped as percentage figures and are illustrated in the graphs. It will be seen from the graphs that a really startling reversal has occurred in the age incidence and that we have in a few short years advanced a long way towards the ideal previously mentioned. It seems also that the biblical estimate of three score years and ten will have to be revised slightly since in 1951, 30.4%, or just under one-third, of all the people who died in Scunthorpe had passed their 75th birthday.
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