View report page

VITAL STATISTICS
General:
As I have said the population of Edmonton is somewhat middle-aged
and there are rather less of the under 20's and over 60's than in the full
population of England and Wales. The Registrar-General therefore provides
correction figures which revise the birth rate and death rate upwards.
If, therefore, the Edmonton population had the same structure as that of
England and Wales, the birth rate would be 15.15 and the death rate 11.66.
If the corrections are sufficient, Edmonton is less fertile than the country
as a whole and somewhat healthier, (or rather less prone to death) than the
country as a whole. I think it is possible that the housing conditions
in Edmonton are now better than the average for England and Wales and the
incidence of pulmonary tuberculosis may also be slightly below average. The
lung cancer death rate is above the national average but the death rate from
diseases of the heart and blood vessels appears to be below it. Deaths
from accidents are a little below the average; this may be due to the age
structure of the population.
Cancer of the Stomach:
The figures 29 corresponds to the average in the past few years.
At one time cancer of the stomach was more common in women, but in the 1962
figures men have the slight majority, 16 to 13. The earliest cases were
between 45 and 65 in men and between 65 and 75 in women. The incidence of
peptic ulcer in Edmonton is not know to me but the death statistics show
the same sex ratio as cancer of the stomach.
Cancer of the Lung:
In these deaths males predominate. Over 90% of the patients dying
from cancer of the lung were men and more than half of these men died before
the age of 65. Only one third of the women died before the age of 65.
Though there were more deaths from lung cancer in 1962 than in 1961 it was
slightly less than in 1960. The figures for England and Wales so far show
a steady rise year by year and I can only conclude that the factor mainly
associated with this rise must have come to bear on the population of
Edmonton sooner than on the population as a whole. It seems highly
probable that this factor was an increase in cigarette smoking and that this
started in Edmonton in 1939 or 1940.
Cancer of the Breast:
This disease seems to becoming slightly less common in Edmonton. It
is said to be commoner in breasts that have not fed children and the
decrease in deaths may therefore be associated with the relative increase in
the number of married women since the 30's.
10