| |
Centre for Policy on Ageing | |
 | |
|
Vulnerability to winter mortality in elderly people in Britain
— population based study | | Author(s) | Paul Wilkinson, Sam Pattenden, Ben Armstrong |
| Journal title | British Medical Journal, vol 329, no 7467, 18 September 2004 |
| Pages | pp 647-651 |
| Source | http://www.bmj.com |
| Keywords | Death rate [statistics] ; Weather conditions ; Winter care ; Longitudinal surveys. |
| Annotation | Britain has a large burden of excess winter deaths, much of which is attributable to the effects of cold. Some 1.4 to 2 million households in England are in fuel poverty - that is, they would have to spend more than 10% of their income to heat the home to an adequate temperature. In this population-based cohort study (119,389 person years of follow up) of people aged 75+ registered with 106 general practices, 10,129 deaths were determined by follow-up through the Office for National Statistics (ONS). Month to month variation accounted for 17% of annual all-cause mortality, but only 7.8% after adjustment for temperature. There was no evidence that socio-economic deprivation or self-reported financial worries were predictive of winter death, although female sex and a history of respiratory illness may confer vulnerability. Public health policies to reduce the burden of winter deaths in Britain will need to be broad-based and to consider measures additional to those aimed at tackling fuel poverty. (RH). |
| Accession Number | CPA-041004205 A |
| Classmark | S5: R4: IB: 3J * |
Data © Centre for Policy on Ageing |
|
| ...from the Ageinfo database published by Centre for Policy on Ageing. |
| |
|