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REPORT
of the Medical Officer of Health
for the year 1961
To the Mayor, Aldermen and Councillors
of the Metropolitan Borough of Wandsworth
Mr. Mayor, Ladies and Gentlemen,
I beg to present to you the Annual Report on the health of
Wandsworth for the year 1961 which follows, in the main, the form
of previous years.
I mentioned in last year's Report that the population of the
Borough which had been trending slightly upwards was halted in
1960. The preliminary report on the 1961 Census has now been
published, according to which the population of Wandsworth is
given as 346,790, an increase of 7,990 over the previous figure and
in this Report, for the purpose of calculating the rates, this figure
has been used.
The crude birth rate was 16.9 per thousand persons living, a slight
increase over the previous year and after taking into account the area
comparability factor, the adjusted rate works out at 16.2 as against
15.6 for 1960, so that the birth rate also is trending slightly upwards.
The rate for England and Wales as a whole was 17.4 and for London
18.7. The crude death rate for the year was 14.0 compared with 14.7
for 1960 and the adjusted rate was 10.5 as against 10.8. The corresponding
figures for England and Wales and London were 12.0 and
11.9 respectively.
No special reference has been made in earlier Reports to the subject
of illegitimacy. From time to time, comments appear dealing
with the national aspects of this social problem and this year I think
it might be looked at from the point of view of Wandsworth. In 1961
there were 630 live illegitimate births, more than 100 greater than in
1960. If this figure of 630 is taken as a percentage of the total live
births, we find that in Wandsworth in 1961, 10.7% of all births were
illegitimate. No figures are yet available for London and the rest of
the country for 1961, but the figure for 1960 for London was 11.4%
and for England and Wales 5.4%. It is thus seen that Wandsworth,
in common with London generally, has a comparatively high proportion
of illegitimate births. That this is a social problem needs no