Cold related mortality in England and Wales; influence of social class in working and retired age groups
- Medical Sciences Building, Queen Mary and Westfield College, London, UK
- Correspondence to: Professor W R Keatinge Medical Sciences Building, Queen Mary and Westfield College, Mile End Road, London E1 4NS, UK; w.r.keatingeqmul.ac.uk
- Accepted 26 February 2003
Percentage increases in mortality in winter were generally higher among lower than higher social classes in 1970–72,1 but recent studies show no clear association with regional estimates of deprivation.2,3 We now assess cold related mortalities (always expressed as a fraction of baseline mortality) among social classes in England and Wales, in working and retired age groups, to look for any current effects of social class, and to see whether any such effects are work related.
METHODS AND RESULTS
Daily deaths 1998–2000 from the Office of National Statistics, for men and women in England and Wales aged 65–74 years and 50–59 years, were extracted by class (when recorded), as 1 (professional), 2 (managerial and technical), 3N (non-manual skilled), 3M (manual skilled), 4 (partly skilled), or 5 (unskilled), with between 896 and 66 477 deaths in each age, sex and class …
