THE Highland death rate is about 10% higher than the UK figure owing
to the high number of fatalities from coronary heart disease, strokes,
accidents, and violence, according to a new report published today by
the Highland Health Board.
Health in the Highlands: Some Facts and Figures gives some
encouragement for those living in the Highlands, recording that the
overall death rate for men in the area from all causes had fallen faster
since 1980 than in the UK as a whole, during a period of greatly
improved health for most people in the country.
The improvement for women during the same period, meanwhile, was about
the same as for all UK women.
Dr Christophet Birt, the board's consultant in public health, said
yesterday: ''Although still high, the death rates for men and women from
coronary heart disease, and from strokes among men, have fallen faster
than the national average since 1980, although the pattern varies
somewhat around the Highlands.''
Dr Birt said that accidents and violence caused a high death rate. In
1980/84 Highland women were twice as likely, and men nearly
two-and-a-half times as likely, to die in this way as were British
people generally.
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