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Chigwell Urban District Council
To the Chairman and Members of the
Chigwell Urban District Council
Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen,
I have pleasure in presenting to you the Annual
Report, including the report of the Senior Sanitary
Inspector, for the year ending 31st December, 1948.
In the statistical tables which follow, births and
deaths have been corrected for "inward" and "outward"
transfers—i.e. they refer only to persons who
normally reside in the district, and they include all
births and deaths among them wherever occurring.
Infectious diseases, however, are allocated to the district
in which they arise, irrespective of the place of
normal residence of the patient.
The health of the population has remained good.
The overall death-rate, and also the infant death rate,
are well below the comparative figures for the country
as a whole. Again there were no deaths of mothers
during or resulting from childbirth. Deaths from
pneumonia and diseases of the heart and circulation
are less than in the previous year, but deaths from
cancer and tuberculosis have increased in number.
The post-war increase in the birth rate has not
been maintained, this figure having fallen from 20.7 per
1000 population in the previous year to 17.5—the lowest
recorded since 1942. This may be an indication of
worsening economic conditions, which lead to later
marriages and smaller families. Although the
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