[Report of the Medical Officer of Health for Hendon].
- Hendon (London, England). Municipal Borough.
- Date:
- [1962?]
Licence: Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0)
Credit: [Report of the Medical Officer of Health for Hendon]. Source: Wellcome Collection.
6/96 page 4
![ANNUAL REPORT of the MEDICAL OFFICER OF HEALTH for the year 1961 To the Mayor, Aldermen and Councillors of the Borough of Hendon Mr. Mayor, Ladies and Gentlemen, I have the honour to submit my Report for the year 1961. The health statistics were good in 1961, and the Registrar-General has esti mated a slight decrease in the population. The high birth rate of 1946, with its problem of the bulge for the educationalist, may in the near future, with the increase in the number of young women in the population, lead to an increase in the birth rate. The ratio of population of homes is lower than ever with an average figure of 3.3 persons per home, but with the little land available for building and the present price of houses there is no suggestion of surplus accommodation, and hous ing difficulties still persist. Several remedies have been tried. We now build upwards more than ever before, and numbers of families and industries have been moved out to new towns beyond the Green Belt. There is scope for a further suggestion-would it not be simpler if instead of moving factories and homes to the new towns, we instead extended a trend well-established in the higher income groups and gave some special encouragement by way of subsidy to retired people to move to the already established retirement areas at the South coast? Such an arrangement might lead to a substantia] increase in the number of people who do so, and who if in good health would regard such a move as a fitting reward for their years of work in the metropolis. The publication (in 1962) of the Report on Fluoridation of Domestic Water Supplies as a means of improving dental health reminds us of the fact that drink ing water supplied by both the Metropolitan Water Board to the South part of the Borough, and the Colne Valley Water Company in the North is seriously deficient in this valuable trace element. A plea is often made by members of the general public for more medical research, but in the case of fluoridation the research scientists have reason to criticise the public's failure to adopt this recommendation with the same enthusiasm as have some forty million people in other countries. Local Govern ment in the Greater London Area is complex and likely to change, and for this reason some years may elapse before fluoridation can be introduced, but in the meantime parents who are interested in this subject should consult their doctor or dentist about the possibility of fluoridation of their children's drinking water. 4](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b19792013_0006.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
