Death rate in Welsh villages similar to African countries
This article is a very good indicator of the perils of statistics. It uses some new health data – relating to deaths per 100,000 population in 2009 to suggest that in a number of settlements, mortality rates at this level, are as high as in African countries. It says:
“Data released in parliament shows that in the most deprived areas of the country, the mortality rate is as high as 1,500 deaths per 100,000 people in a single year. By contrast the death rate is 1,427 in Rwanda and 1,452 in Botswana, according to the World Health Organization. The area with the highest death rate in England and Wales is Bryncethin in Bridgend, south Wales, with 1,499 deaths per 100,000 population in 2009.”
Something however seemed not quite right to me when I noticed that second on this list of supposedly deprived settlements judged by the number of deaths per 100,000 was a ward in Oswestry – I donwloaded the data referenced in the article and found that settlements in Stroud, North Somerset (Weston Super-Mare), South Oxfordshire, Mid-Sussex, Hambleton, South Norfolk and West Somerset were on the top 100 list. All are Predominantly rural authorities – including some Cornish and Durham settlements there are 13 neighbourhoods in RSN eligible rural authorities on the list and over 20 from Wales.
I would not for one minute assume that there is no deprivation in these RSN authority wards however neither do I think it is credible to suggest they are amongst the 100 most deprived wards in England and Wales. On balance my suspicion is that demography has as much to do with the death rate in some of these wards as traditional measures of deprivation.
Makes you think though – if a more imaginative measure of the all round challenges facing neighbourhoods, linked to issues such as demography, were to be used to assess the overall sustainability of settlements, perhaps our thinking about the case for how funding to support challenged authorities across England should be distributed, would be both a little more sophisticated and even effective.
If you would like to see a copy of the list, with the predominantly rural neighbourhood areas picked out let me know.