BMJ  2004;329:976 (23 October), doi:10.1136/bmj.329.7472.976

Letter

Winter mortality in elderly people in Britain

Action on outdoor cold stress is needed to reduce winter mortality

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

EDITOR—The paper by Wilkinson et al, on people aged over 75, makes a useful addition to the evidence that winter mortality in Britain is now not caused primarily by deprivation and failure to heat homes.¹ In addition to other evidence they quote, a recent study on younger people provides positive indications that cold exposure outside the home causes winter mortality regardless of economic status.²

Manual workers (social class 5) of working age (50-59) in Britain had low cold related mortality compared with any other class. This was not the case with their wives of similar age or for men of the same class after retirement age (65-74). It implies that internal heat production from manual work protected class 5 men of working age against daytime cold stress and consequent mortality. Elderly people in sheltered housing that was fully heated, but who often went outdoors, had as much winter . . . [Full text of this article]

Queen Mary College, University of London, London E1 4NS w.r.keatinge@qmul.ac.uk

Barts and the London School of Medicine and Dentistry, Queen Mary College

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