Inequality among men in standardised years of potential life lost, 1970-93
BMJ 1998; 317 doi: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.317.7153.255 (Published 25 July 1998) Cite this as: BMJ 1998;317:255
- David Blane (d.blane@cxwms.ac.uk), reader in medical sociologya,
- Frances Drever, statisticianb
- aDepartment of Behavioural and Cognitive Science, Imperial College School of Medicine, London W6 8RP
- bDemography and Health, Office for National Statistics, 1 Drummond Gate, London, SW1V 2QQ
- Correspondence to: Dr Blane
Information was published last year about the social class distribution of premature deaths in England and Wales during 1991-3.1 We analysed these deaths in terms of standardised years of potential life lost, a measure that takes account of the age at death as well as death itself. We considered only men of working age because of the importance of this group to policy.2
Subjects, methods, and results
We used population data from the 10% sample of each relevant census. This sample is coded to the registrar general's social classification. Only men aged 20-64 years were included because many men outside this age range could not be allocated to a social class. Deaths by age and social class for 1970-2, 1979-80 and 1982-3, and 1991-3 (used in decennial supplements to the census 1, 6, …