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To the Chairman and Members of the Chigwell
Urban District Council.
THE CHAIRMAN, MADAM AND GENTLEMEN,
I have pleasure in presenting the Annual Report of the Medical
Officer of Health for the year 1965, which includes the report of the
Chief Public Health Inspector.
As from 1st April, 1965, the revision of boundaries resulting
from London Government re-organisation reduced the area of the District
from 8,972 to 8,769 acres, the number of inhabited houses from 18,138 to
16,535, and the population from 62,650 to 55,940. The area absorbed into
Greater London consisted mainly of post-war L.C.C. houses (Hainault Estate),
and as no shops, industries or old properties were included, the work of
the Public Health Department has not been materially affected by these
changes.
VITAL STATISTICS
As the births and deaths which occurred during the early part
of the year refer to the population within the old boundaries of the
District, the annual birth and death rates, which are necessarily based
on the smaller mid-1965 population, are not exactly comparable with the
rates for previous years. However, there appear to have been no significant
changes. The birth-rate (14.2 per thousand) remains a good deal less than
the national average (18.1), and the death-rate at 10.7 per thousand is
slightly lower than the national figure of 11.5 for the year. Both these
figures have been "corrected" to allow for differences in the age and sex
distribution of the local population as compared with the national average
as we have, in fact, a smaller proportion of women of child-bearing age,
and of old people than the country as a whole.
The rather high incidence of still-births (19) last year has not
been repeated, and the number this year (11) represents a similar rate
(15.1 per 1000 total births) to that for all England and Wales (15.7).
Deaths of infants under one year (14 per thousand live births) remain well
below the national average rate (19.0) which shows great credit to the
standard of infant care in the District,
The unchanged death-rate from all causes is the result of a
balance between rises in strokes and coronaries, and falls in other forms
of heart and circulatory disease, and cancers of the lung and stomach.
There were no deaths from child-birth or abortion,
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