Mortality in regions and local authority districts in the 1990s: exploring the relationship with deprivation

Regional and local authority patterns of mortality in England and Wales for both males and females are presented for the latest available years (1989-93). The familiar geographic pattern of higher mortality in the north and west and lower mortality to the south and east of the country has continued into the 1990s and there has been no significant widening or narrowing in the mortality gap between the worst and the best regions during the 1980s. The local authorities with higher mortality are still predominantly in urban areas. Using a modified form of the Department of Environment's 1991 deprivation index, mortality in more than 350 English local authorities in 1989-93 was analysed to study the interaction between socio-economic and geographic variables. There is a very strong relationship between mortality and deprivation at the local authority level measured by this new index, with a tendency for higher mortality to be associated with greater deprivation. This relationship is most marked for males, but is still strong for females.