London's Pulse: Medical Officer of Health reports 1848-1972

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Wandsworth 1972

[Report of the Medical Officer of Health for Wandsworth, Metropolitan Borough]

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95
So far as local publicity was concerned this was prepared in
collaboration with the Council's Press and Information Officer
and comprised press releases, posters to be displayed on site
and about 18,000 individual leaflets to be distributed either on
a door-to-door basis or handed out in the street. The decision
as to the method of distributing leaflets was based on the nature
of the locality, with door-to-door distribution being used in the
predominantly residential areas of Thessaly Road and Roehampton
Lane and street hand-outs being used in the other three areas,
namely Northcote Road, Falcon Road and Dryburgh Road where
there were more commercial and public recreational activities.
Valuable assistance in distributing the leaflets was provided
by members of Scouts Groups and the Alton Youth Club in relation
to door-to-door delivery and by voluntary helpers organised by the
Women's National Cancer Control Campaign in relation to street
handouts. A visit to the Unit by The Worshipful the Mayor was
greatly appreciated. To provide a further means of monitoring
and evaluating the performance of the mobile unit, a concurrent
publicity campaign was arranged in two control areas which were
not to be visited by the unit and where there were well-established
static clinics. The two control areas selected were Balham - where
leaflets were distributed on a door-to-door basis within a half-mile
radius of the Balham Child Health Centre, Bedford Hill - and
Tooting Broadway, where leaflets were handed out in the street.
During the four-week period a total of 374 women attended the
mobile unit. A detailed analysis of those attending by age,
marital status and source of referral is given in the following
tables:-

TABLE 31

ANALYSIS OF WOMEN ATTENDING BY AGE-GROUP AND MARITAL STATUS

Age-groupMarried Totals %Single Totals %Separated or divorced Totals %Widowed Totals %TOTALS
Under 2571.941.110.312
25-345414.582.141.010.367
35-447921.151.451.351.394
45-549425.130 851.361.6108
55 644812.882.120.671.965
65-74112.9164.327
Over 7410.31
TOTAL29378.3287.5174.5369.7374

Table 31 shows that the majority of women attending were
married, and that nearly 80% of all who attended were 35 years
of age or over.