Some aspects of the medical geography of County Durham

Abstract

This thesis is concerned with the investigation of disease patterns at the intermediate or regional level, in relation to the existing framework provided by a number of recent surveys of disease mortality at the national scale. The latter had drawn attention to the particularly poor disease experience of County Durham in relation to the rest of the United Kingdom. A number of previously unmapped data sources, particularly in the case of morbidity, are investigated with the aid of some original cartographi's devices and data handling techniques, which are described in chapters two, three and eight. Chapter four is concerned with a geographical analysis of three consecutive epidemic cycles of measles during the period 1961-65. The epidemiological significance of living density in the determination of diffusion patterns is demonstrated, and atmospheric pollution is invoked as a possible aetiological factor in the initiation of epidemicity. Chapter five deals with a similar detailed study of the geographical distribution of tuberculosis, and particularly the respiratory form of the disease, in County Durham as a whole. The influence of density factors (particularly overcrowding) socio-economic status and housing conditions upon the disease pattern is investigated by means of multiple regression techniques. Chapter six provides a more detailed study of the relationship between housing and respiratory tuberculosis for three selected local authorities in south-central Tyneside. Chapter seven represents a by-product from the main lines of inquiry, and is concerned with the possible involvement of iron ore dust as an aetiological factor in the causation of certain ill-defined stomach disorders at Con sett during the winter of 1964.-65.Section III concludes the study with a preliminary survey of mortality patterns in County Durham, between 1963-6?, for the major causes of death. A number of .tentative conclusions are drawn from those distribution maps, but only where the evidence appears to be consistent with accepted medical theory. It should be noted that two poppers embodying the partial results of this investigation, and in particular chapters two and nine, have already been published.