View report page

PREFACE
To the Chairman and Members of the
Carshalton Urban District Council.
Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen,
I have the honour to present my Annual Report on the health of the
district for the year 1960.
An event of considerable significance as affecting the vital statistics
of the area which has occurred since the close of the year was the Census
of 1961. The detailed analysis of this official enumeration will not be
available for some time but the preliminary figures for total population
are known and these show that the local population now stands at
approximately 57,400 which is some 5,000 less than the de facto population
at the Census of 1951. This fall from 62,731 in 1951 is indicative
of the maturing of the district, particularly of the St. Helier Estate. The
age constitution of the local population has undoubtedly been undergoing
a progressive change since the area became built up with the result that
there has been in the last decade a steady increase in the average age
and it now approximates more closely to that of the population of the
country as a whole. Consequently when the full details of the recent
Census are known there will probably be a change in the future "comparability
factors" supplied by the Registrar General which are applied
to local birth and death rates to make them comparable with the national
figures. At present the comparable rates are heavily weighted on the
basis of Carshalton's population being substantially younger than the
national population. This was valid 10 years ago but in the light of the
preliminary Census returns it is now very doubtful.
Allowing for such discrepancies the statistics for 1960 are nevertheless
very satisfactory. The birth rate is the lowest yet recorded in the
district, due, doubtless, in considerable measure to the fact that the young
married people are unable to find homes in the district and have to seek
them elsewhere. The death rate, as for many years past, is substantially
less than the national rate, whilst the infant mortality index is again a
favourable one. One maternal death was recorded. Heart disease maintained
its position as "captain of the men of death", being responsible
for one-third of the total deaths, whilst cancer of the lung continued to
entrench itself as a major killing disease. The successful inroads made
in recent years into tuberculosis prevalence and mortality were sustained.
The incidence of infectious disease was particularly low, due in large
measure to the absence of measles in epidemic proportions, a further
satisfactory feature being the complete freedom from poliomyelitis for
the first time since the epidemic year of 1947. Accompanying this low
prevalence of infectious illness was the total absence of fatality from any
of the common notifiable diseases.
3