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Females, as a class, live longer than males, and a town
with an undue proportion of women would show a lower death
rate than a town with an undue proportion of men, although the
former might not necessarily be a healthier district. The age
constitution of the population affects the death rate in a more
marked manner. The tendency to death is much greater among
persons living at the extremes of life—among infants and old
people—and the liability to die reaches its minimum among
persons living between the ages of ten and fifteen years. In
order to neutralise the errors in death rate arising from sex and
age constitution, the Registrar General has devised a method by
which they can be corrected. This method is based upon the
death rate of each sex at different ages throughout England and
Wales, and by this means series of factors are obtained bv
which the recorded death rates of different towns can be
multiplied, so as to make them comparable with that of England
and Wales and with each other. The figures by which the
recorded or crude death rate should be multiplied, in order to
correct for variations of sex and age distribution, is called the
factor for correction for the particular district ; and when the
recorded death rate is multiplied by the factor for correction, the
result is the corrected death rate for that district.
The factor for correction for Acton is 1.04240, so that
if the recorded death rate 12.5 be multiplied by this figure the
corrected death rate is 13.1.
In 1905, the death rate for the whole of England and
Wales was 15.2 per 1,000; for the 76 large towns it was
15.7 per 1.000, and for the 141 smaller towns it was 14.4
per 1,000.
Ward Distribution—
It is desirable and important that the statistics should be
subjected to as minute an analysis as possible, if we are to
ascertain the results obtained, and in what direction progress
has been made. It is by such means that the actual influence of