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The trend of the death rate in London, together with that for England and Wales,
is indicated by the diagram on page 13. The areal comparability factor for the London
death rate (which allows for the differing sex and age structure in the local population
to enable comparison to be made with the national rate) was 1.00 for 1956 and has
never been far from unity ever since its introduction in 1934. The two sets of rates
therefore, unlike the birth rates, are reasonably comparable without further adjustment.
The course of the death rate in London and the high rate during the war years
has been commented upon in reports for earlier years. Mortality in 1956 followed the
pattern of 1955—a characteristic of both years was the cold weather in the early part of the
year (February 1956 was exceptionally cold) accompanied by a rise in deaths following
low temperatures; there was also a thick fog in London from 4th-6th January which
it has been estimated caused some 400 excess deaths in the County** though precise
estimation of the excess mortality is difficult because of the normal seasonal rise in
mortality which occurs at this time of year. ‡
Leading
causes of
death

There was no change in the order of ranking of the causes of death compared with
1955. The pattern of mortality over the past eleven years is shown in the diagram on
page 12, which, by expressing deaths from the causes shown as a percentage of all
deaths in each year, shows the trend of the contribution of the four principal causes
and of mortality from tuberculosis. Over the period heart disease and vascular lesions
showed a tendency to rise; these are the causes of death particularly associated with
old age and the extent of the rise has been matched by a corresponding increase in the
proportion of old people in the population. The continuing upward trend in cancer
deaths is clearly demonstrated; the variation in deaths from bronchitis and pneumonia
reflected the severity or otherwise of the weather, 1948, 1950 and 1954 were generally
years of mild weather, this was especially so in 1948 and 1950 during the first quarter
of the year in which, as a general rule, one-third of the annual deaths occur.
Heart disease
Since the war and its aftermath the death rate from heart disease seems to have
settled down at around 3.5 per 1,000 and, as stated earlier, now accounts for about
one-third of total mortality. The table below shows the figures for the last seven years,
from which it will be noted that the male death rate consistently exceeded that of
females, on average by about 11 per cent.
* Excluding pneumonia of the new born (under 4 weeks) which is included in ' Diseases of early infancy'.
† Including 571 deaths (rate of 0.17) from nephritis and hyperplasia of prostate formerly separately listed.
‡ This is discussed more fully in Appendix B.
** Logan, W. P. D. 4Mortality from fog in London, Jan. 1956', Brit. Med. Jul. 31.3.56.
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