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4
To the Mayor, Aldermen and Councillors
of the Borough of Erith
Mr. Mayor, Ladies and Gentlemen,
I have the honour to present my Annual Report for the
year 1953.
The vital statistics of the Borough indicate once again
that, according to this limited yardstick, the health of the
Borough can be considered satisfactory. The customary
warning must however be given that these figures should be
accepted with guarded optimism as they give only a part,
albeit an important one, of the total health situation of a
population numbering nearly 46,000.
The birth rate for 1953 was 14.63 per 1,000 of the population,
the lowest ever recorded in the Borough, compared with
14.83 in 1952. The birth rate for 1953, after correction by the
comparability factor supplied by the Registrar General
(1.00) was 14.63. The uncorrected birth rate for England and
Wales was 15.5 so it will be seen that, once again, the birth
rate for the Borough was below that of the country as a
whole.
The death rate for 1953, at 10.88 per 1,000 of the whole
population, was a little higher than the rate for 1952 which was
10.85 per 1,000. After correction by the comparability
factor for deaths (1.09), the rate was 11.86 and the uncorrected
death rate for England and Wales for 1953 was 11.4. Cancer
was again second, after diseases of the heart and blood vessels,
among the chief causes of death.
The infant mortality rate for 1953 at 32.79 per 1,000
live births showed an increase on the rate for 1952 namely,
29.3 per 1,000 live births. The rate for the country as a whole
was 26.8 per 1,000 related births, so that this increase in the
Erith rate is a cause of some concern although the rate for
1951 was even higher at 34.8 and I have often warned against
placing too much reliance on annual figures, but to have
regard for the figures over a period in view of the small numbers