Mortality, cause of death and social class in the Belfast urban area, 1970

Intra-urban variations in standardised mortality ratios are investigated for Belfast using data extracted from death certificates. Although the standardised mortality ratios do not exhibit a high degree of spatial order, it is observed that they appear to reflect variations in social class. The relationship between social class and each of the major causes of death is investigated at two scale levels: an ecological (i.e. aggregate) level, and the individual level. It is found that there is a relationship between mortality and social class for almost every major cause of death, but that the nature of this relationship varies between causes of death. It is argued that these variations may provide useful clues as to the causes of these diseases. The findings also suggest that the results of studies conducted at only an ecological level need to be interpreted with extreme caution.