View report page

10
INFANT MORTALITY
Twenty-seven children under one year of age died and of
these 20 were under one week old. The infant mortality rate
(deaths of children under one year per 1 ,000 live births) dropped
by four to 16, the lowest rate since 1953 and 1954 when the figure
was also 16. The figure of 16 is in fact the lowest ever recorded
in Hampstead.
DEATHS
The number of Hampstead residents who died in 1961 was
975. This is the lowest number of deaths recorded since 1930,
with the exceptions of the year 1954 and the years 1941 and 1942.
During the last mentioned years the population was reduced by
evacuation to 58,760 and 63,240 respectively.
This gives a crude death rate of 10. 1 per 1 ,000 of the
population and an adjusted death rate for comparisons with other
areas of 10. 0. In 1960 the crude death rate was 10.4 and the
adjusted rate 10. 5.
There was only one death from tuberculosis and this was
in a woman of 88 years of age who had not previously been
notified as suffering from this disease. In fact tuberculosis was
only given as a contributory cause of death but the primary cause
was indefinite for the purposes of classification.
The number of deaths from cancer of the lung which rose
from 38 in 1959 to 63 in 1960, fell again in 1961 to 43. This
fluctuation is what might be expected in dealing with comparatively
small numbers and it does not unfortunately indicate a reduction
in the disease.
There were no deaths from poliomyelitis and none from
measles in spite of the very large number of cases of the latter
disease.
Deaths due to motor vehicle accidents fell from 13 in 1960
to 5, but deaths from all other accidents rose from 18 to .1960 to
21 in 1961.
The number of deaths from suicide fell by 3 to 24.