View report page

The downward movement of the death rate through the
years is shown more clearly in Table XX., which gives the rates
in quinquennial periods. In connection with this table and the
tables giving the death rates for individual years, it should be
noted that there is considerable doubt whether the true death rate
at the early part of the period under review was really as low as
the rates given here would seem to indicate. For example, it is
probable that the low rate of 15.4 in 1876 was due to the fact that
the system of transferring deaths to the place in which the patient
was ordinarily resident had not then reached the necessary degree
of efficiency.
Apart from the first quinquennial period shown in Table
XX., it is seen that the general death rate for persons exhibits
through the next twenty-five years a downward tendency. For
the period 1881—1905 this trend was gradual. Then there
was a slight but sudden drop, and the death rate was maintained
at the new level until the early years after the war. Thereafter
there was another marked fall, and from that date the general
death rate has tended to become more or less established on its
new low plane. The differential death rates for males and females
respectively, so far as can be judged from the records at present
at my disposal, exhibit corresponding tendencies. These features
are also shown, though to a less marked extent, in the death rate
of England and Wales as a whole.
Adjusted death rates. Since 1934 the Registrar-General
has supplied to each authority an area comparability factor
(A.C.F.) which compensates for local variations in the age constitution
of the population. The use of this factor enables the
local crude death rate from all causes to be compared directly with
the adjusted death rates for other areas or with the crude rate
for the country as a whole. For the year 1934 this factor was
1.15, and there has been no change in succeeding years. The
adjusted death rates for the years 1934—37 inclusive are therefore
13.4, 12.4, 13.3, and 13.8 respectively. As judged on this basis
the death rates for West Ham are not quite so favourable as those
for the country as a whole.
80