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1
ANNUAL REPORT OF THE MEDICAL OFFICER
OF HEALTH FOR 1972
To the Mayor, Aldermen and Councillors
of the London Borough of Wandsworth.
MR. MAYOR, LADIES AND GENTLEMEN,
I have the honour to present to you the eighth Annual Report
on the health of the London Borough of Wandsworth covering the
twelve months ended the 31st December, 1972.
In the year in which the preliminary reports of the 1971 Census
appeared it seems wholly appropriate to adhere to the tradition of
giving pride of place in the Annual Report to those vital statistics
regarded as broad indices of the state of the public health; to
facilitate ready comparison the figures for the previous year are
shown in parentheses in this paragraph. Even allowing for the
quite appreciable fluctuations in mortality rates which must be
expected when comparatively small numbers are involved, 1972
proved somewhat disappointing statistically. Although the size
of the incidentally highly mobile resident population increased
marginally - the mid-year estimate rising from 300,530 to
302,258 - compared with 1971 there were over four hundred
fewer births, some twenty additional stillbirths, and sixty-six
more deaths at all ages including an extra twenty in the first
year of life. Thus, in contrast to the fall in the birth rate to
13.40 (15.70), the general death rate rose to 11.70 (11.20)
attributable at least in part to the impact on an ageing population
of sharp i nfluenza outbreaks in the first and last quarters of
1972. As in the previous year only one death ascribed to
pregnancy or childbirth occurred, the maternal mortality rate
remaining virtually unchanged at 0.22 (0.20), but an appreciable
increase was recorded in the overall infant mortality rate, 23.0
(17.0) and in the stillbirth rate, 14.0 (9.0); more particularly the
neonatal mortality rate, related to deaths under the age of one
month, and the perinatal mortality rate - which is based on the
number of stillbirths and deaths within the first week of life per
thousand total live and stillbirths - rose to 15.0 (11.0) and
26.0 (19.0) respectively. Clearly the prenatal influences which
are to the fore where perinatal deaths are concerned remain a
fertile field for research. Much also remains to be learned concerning
the causes of the acute respiratory infections which can
strike so dramatically and fatally during the remainder of the
first year of life - a need vividly illustrated by the fact that an
increase in deaths from pneumonia accounted for all but one of
the ten extra fatalities which occurred in 1972 in these still
vulnerable remaining eleven months of infancy. Taking infant
health as a whole there is cause for neither alarm nor