Mortality rates and self reported health: database analysis by English local authority area

doi:10.1136/bmj.38238.508021.F7

BMJ 2004;329:887-888 (16 October), doi:10.1136/bmj.38238.508021.F7 (published 24 September 2004)

Paper

Mortality rates and self reported health: database analysis by English local authority area

Robert G E Kyffin, public health intelligence officer¹, Michael J Goldacre, professor of public health², Mike Gill, regional director of public health¹

¹ South East Regional Public Health Group, Government Office for the South East, Bridge House, Guildford, Surrey GU1 4GA, ² Unit of Health-Care Epidemiology, Department of Public Health, University of Oxford, Institute of Health Sciences, Oxford OX3 7LF

Correspondence to: R G E Kyffin robert.kyffin@dh.gsi.gov.uk

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

Introduction

Mortality rates are commonly used as summary measures of currenthealth status when comparing different populations. Their usein this way is often criticised, however, because mortalityrates, though readily available and objective, are such an extrememeasure of ill health. Surveys of self reported health, as analternative approach to quantifying the health of a population,tend to be regarded as flawed because of their subjectivity.The UK census in 2001 included two measures of self reportedhealth. We compared their values for each local authority areawith the mortality rates for each area to find out whether mortalityand self reported health are correlated.

Methods and results

For each local authority area in England, we took the age standardisedmortality rates for the major causes of death pooled for 1999and 2001 from the Compendium of Clinical and Health Indicators.¹

For the same areas, we calculated age standardised rates of. . . [Full text of this article]

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