Poliomyelitis : a survey of the outbreak in Scotland in 1947.

Date:
1950
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Poliomyelitis : a survey of the outbreak in Scotland in 1947. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    18/84 (page 16)
    to the results that neither in any one age group nor in the whole distribution was a significant difference found. The second led to the finding of very significant differences at ages 5-9 and 10-14, with a significant difference at ages 20-29 and a highly significant difference over the whole distribution. In general, patients with paralytic poliomyelitis tended to come from households with five or less occupants whereas patients whose final diagnosis was not poliomyelitis tended to come from households with larger numbers of occupants. ~ On the analogy of the method of handling the data in section 8 (c), “ not poliomyelitis ” and poliomyelitis without paralysis could have been combined for comparison with poliomyelitis with paralysis ; this procedure was not adopted. (d) Number of occupants and fatality rates. The number of occupants in the household had no significant association with the fatality rate of any of the three types of illness. 10. HOUSING—-DEGREE OF CROWDING The division of notifications by numbers of apartments and of occupants is shown in Table 14. From this table, two others (Tables 144 and 14B) have been derived, and the method needs some explanation. In the first place, Table 14 shows neither numbers of apartments, numbers of occupants nor age groups in such detail as preceding tables. This compression of data was a necessary result of the increase in the headings under which the data were classified. In the second place, no attempt has been made to fix any arbitrary standard of under- or over-crowding ; in particular, it was not considered necessary to use any quotient (such as two persons per room) when it could be left to the data to provide whatever standards could be found. In the third place, no attempt has been made to give precedence to either the numbers of apartments or the number of occupants. This last consideration has led to the inclusion of Tables 14a and 148. In Table 14a the data have been considered for houses of stated numbers of apartments which have then been sub-divided according to ‘the numbers of occupants. ‘The reverse procedure has been used to compute Table 148, which deals with household units of stated numbers of persons which have then been sub-divided according to the numbers of apartments which they occupied. It is convenient to deal with these aspects of the data separately. 10a. APARTMENTS STATED-—OCCUPANTS VARIABLE (a) General. Absolute numbers are in Table 14 and percentage distributions in Table 14a. Table 14 is best read in horizontal sections for this purpose, the absolute figures corresponding to the percentages of Table 14a. (5) Apartments, occupants, types of illness and age groups. The data ‘have been examined for each stated size of house, as below. (1) One apartment. None of the three types of illness showed lack of uniformity when sub-divided by age groups and number of occupants. A valid ‘comparison was therefore possible between poliomyelitis without paralysis and poliomyelitis with paralysis at all ages; this showed that their occupant dis- tributions did not differ significantly, so that they could be added together and contrasted with “ not poliomyelitis ” at all ages. In actual fact, the comparison was made at ages under and over 5 years. Neither in separate age groups nor at all ages was there a significant difference between the occupant distributions of ‘poliomyelitis and “ not poliomyelitis.”