Mortality in the London Boroughs, 1950--52, with Special Reference to Respiratory Disease

This paper is based on a study of mortality in the Administrative County of London in the three years immediately surrounding the most recent Census, during which period just over 120,000 London resi dents died. For some of the rarer causes of death it would have been desirable to study a longer period, but there were several reasons for not attempting this. In the first place there was the risk of error in local population figures at intervals of more than 18 months from the Census date. Secondly, a new re vision of the International Classification of Diseases (World Health Organization, 1949) came into oper ation in 1950, giving rise to certain discontinuities in the statistics. Thirdly, and much more important for local mortality studies, a change was made in 1953 in the official definition of the usual residence of deceased persons. As a result all deaths in hos pitals for the chronic sick and in mental and mental deficiency hospitals have been assigned, from 1953 onwards, to the area of the hospital, whether or not the patient had originally been admitted from that area (Registrar General, 1954, Corrigenda). This change has had a serious effect on the statistics for London, most of which is served by chronic and mental hospitals outside the county boundary. Im portant features of local mortality have been obliter ated by the change and new anomalies have appeared. Unless there is a reversion to the practice which made British mortality statistics for many decades an ex ample to the world, general studies of local mor tality must come to an end with 1952.