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.