Boris Johnson plans to close fire stations in New Cross, Downham and Woolwich as part of budget cuts designed to save £29m over two years. Since the proposals were announced, the London Fire Brigade has published a document setting out the impact on response times of fire engines at ward level. The document is quite dense and contains a couple of enormous tables so I thought I would try to distil out some of the impacts on the boroughs of Lewisham and Greenwich.
This News Shopper article pointed out the impact in 5 wards across the boroughs today, but I think it's worth looking across all wards to see the total effect. It's worth pointing out that a significant number of wards already have response times that fall outside the target time of 6 minutes for the first appliance. (I haven't looked at the second appliance times because I think that's confused by the fact that not all fires will need one.)
The four columns in the tables of response times for the first appliance below are:
2011/12 fires
2011/12 all incidents
Current Performance (3 Year Average) (minutes)
Post LSP5 Performance (minutes)
Bellingham 57 177 06:29 06:55
Blackheath 37 189 04:48 04:54
Brockley 44 253 05:28 05:41
Catford South 19 94 05:29 06:13
Crofton Park 41 180 04:01 04:07
Downham 63 166 05:54 07:38
Evelyn 49 343 04:32 04:37
Forest Hill 38 178 05:41 05:45
Grove Park 67 187 05:10 06:27
Ladywell 38 129 04:56 05:01
Lee Green 20 131 04:29 04:35
Lewisham Central 56 470 04:06 04:11
New Cross 72 298 05:04 05:31
Perry Vale 34 179 04:16 04:22
Rushey Green 77 252 04:46 04:53
Sydenham 44 206 06:14 06:21
Telegraph Hill 44 206 05:15 07:24
Whitefoot 73 191 05:08 07:57
Abbey Wood 91 220 06:24 06:28
Blackheath Westcombe 98 223 06:03 06:07
Charlton 37 138 05:45 05:55
Coldharbour and New Eltham 35 96 06:16 06:19
Eltham North 31 110 05:11 05:17
Eltham South 50 142 04:51 04:56
Eltham West 43 106 05:53 05:57
Glyndon 116 255 05:17 05:23
Greenwich 51 317 04:24 04:28
Kidbrooke with Hornfair 48 135 06:34 06:43
Middle Park and Sutcliffe 41 155 05:07 05:11
Peninsula 67 306 05:20 05:27
Plumstead 101 214 04:48 04:54
Shooters Hill 64 148 06:35 07:01
Thamesmead Moorings 120 256 07:07 07:13
Woolwich Common 93 328 05:32 06:36
Woolwich Riverside 112 452 04:57 07:26
(Source: Ward impacts of changes to fire stations and engines)
I've highlighted in red those wards that will be outside target response times following implementation of the London Fire Safety Plan 5. Those in italics are already outside target. So in Lewisham the number of wards outside target increases from 2 to 7 of 18 wards and in Greenwich the increase is from 6 to 8 of 17 wards. I'm no expert, but this doesn't look particularly safe or sensible to me, and not just because I happen to live in one of the affected wards.
Petitions against the cuts are available and I recommend you sign them:
Downham
Woolwich
General petition against the cuts
If anyone knows of a New-Cross-specific petition I'll add it!
You can also respond to the consultation here until 17 June.
Tuesday, May 14, 2013
Wednesday, May 08, 2013
Recent Reads: The Tale of Raw Head and Bloody Bones by Jack Wolf
The Tale of Raw Head and Bloody Bones by Jack WolfMy rating: 1 of 5 stars
It's hard to describe just how much I disliked this book. It's not that I dislike books with unreliable narrators, I've read plenty that I enjoyed, not least Florence and Giles by John Harding, but I found Tristan Hart one of the most unlikeable lead characters I've had the displeasure to encounter in a long time. The language of the book is tricky and a bit irritating at first, but you can get over that. It is simply that Tristan is a spoilt brat, if a genius, and it's this, not his mental illness, that makes him objectionable. And that's before we get onto the way he treats women!
View all my reviews
Recent Reads: The Lives and Loves of Hana Lee by KP Webster
The Lives and Loves of Hana Lee by KP WebsterMy rating: 3 of 5 stars
I liked this quite well in the end, despite having to skip through the last 20% at great speed in order to get it finished in time for malbec club (yes I was finishing it sitting at the table in Mr Lawrence's...)
The first two or three chapters set the story up nicely, and I think unfortunately the story itself didn't quite live up to its early promise. I found Gabby an irritating character, although clearly necessary to the story.
I also felt there were a few too many anti-men sentiments peppered throughout the text that didn't really add to the story, in fact they became quite jarring and irritating as the story went on.
It was easy to read, and quite a page turner - I liked the way the story flipped between past and present from chapter to chapter. I think my favourite parts of the book were the bits from the 1800s in Paris, I felt perhaps the author ran out of steam a bit by the time Hana got to Japan/America.
The sex is better written than 50 Shades of Grey...
View all my reviews
Saturday, April 27, 2013
Lewisham is the UK's least peaceful place
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Well it certainly was last week when I read the BBC report that a new UK peace index had worked out out that that I live in the country's least peaceful borough.
The index consists of 5 separate indicators:
- Homicides per 100,000 people
- Violent Crimes per 100,000 people
- Weapons Crime per 100,000 people
- Public Disorder Offences per 100,000 people (used as a proxy for fear of crime, rather than using data from the Crime Survey of England and Wales, which isn't (as far as I know) robust to local authority level, though it's certainly more accurate than recorded crime figures)
- Police Officers per 100,000 people (not including Policy Community Support Officers (PCSOs).)
Each of these 5 indicators is given a score from one to 5 depending on its value and then the indicators are weighted and combined to produce the overall index where 1 if low and 5 is high. The weights are as follows: Homicide 26.7%, Violent Crime 26.7%, Weapons Crime 13.3%, Public Disorder 13.3%, Police Officers 20.0%. So a fifth of the index is accounted for by police officer numbers. It isn't clear whether a high number of officers is considered good or bad, but it's worth noting that Lewisham borough contains Britain's largest police station, and this police station is located in Lewisham Central ward, which the report notes accounts for the majority of the crime recorded in Lewisham... Alarm bells are ringing already!
The method used to work out the index is pretty standard, but most other indices used in social research either have a lot more indicators feeding into them (eg the indices of deprivation have 38 separate indicators) or are based on a range data, eg Townsend and Carstairs scores. The Townsend score is made up of four variables from the Census:
- Unemployment as a percentage of those aged 16 and over who are economically active.
- Non-car ownership, as a percentage of all households.
- Non-home ownership as a percentage of all households.
- Household overcrowding.
- low social class
- lack of car ownership
- overcrowding
- male unemployment
What you'll notice about these indices is that they contain variables that differ from each other in what they are trying to measure, though all cover different aspects of deprivation. The variables going into the peace index all relate to different types of crime. Nothing else (apart from the odd choice of police officer numbers) is considered.
The other thing that annoyed me about the peace index was its undue focus on the top and bottom areas. Lewisham and four other areas are picked out and discussed in detail. Lewisham's score was 4.529, Tower Hamlets 4.360. Lewisham's neighbouring boroughs of Southwark and Greenwich scored 4.314 and 4.002 respectively, yet these areas are not discussed at all, and no indication is given as to the confidence we can put on the figures. Confidence intervals are not shown, if they were calculated at all, so we have no idea whether or not the figure of 4.529 is statistically significantly different from the 4.494 scored by the second placed borough, Lambeth. My guess would be it is not, and one thing I would be willing to bet good money on is that these numbers will vary a lot by area on a year to year basis.
Still, people love a league table, reliable or not, so the press and public were all over this story last week and of course Lewisham council's very own rentaquote was on hand to call for the Mayor's resignation over the figures. I'd argue that this is a disproportionate reaction and the Lewisham is no worse than other inner London areas. One of our local MPs, Heidi Alexander, has a more measured approach arguing that, "for most people, most of the time, Lewisham is a safe place to live." That doesn't mean that things shouldn't be done to tackle youth and gang-related crime, but these initiatives need to cross artificial borough-based boundaries and look across London for solutions, and this is where league tables simply do not help. Organisations such as the Jimmy Mizen foundation are working tremendously hard to put a stop to youth violence and these simply don't get a mention in the peace index report, which prefers to start its section on Lewisham with a reference to something which happened in 1977. By all means use data to start a debate, but at least make sure it's robust, and that you do your research into what's going on the ground now, before pontificating!
If this index is produced again next year, lets see just how different the figures are year-on-year before singling out Lewisham for criticism!
Tuesday, March 26, 2013
Recent reads: Capital by John Lanchester
Capital by John LanchesterMy rating: 3 of 5 stars
This started promisingly, with an interesting selection of characters all living in or connected to Pepys Road, a fictional street in Clapham somewhere. I almost wished it had been set in the real Pepys Road, which is in New Cross, but never mind, Clapham probably fitted the story better.
I enjoyed reading it, and the story went along at a decent pace, but in the end I didn't find the characters deep enough to care about too much, except perhaps Zbigniew and, surprisingly, Roger, the investment banker whose heart just wasn't really in it and who had to put up with Arabella, his wife and probably the most obnoxious character in the book.
The postcards idea was an interesting thread that drew the whole thing together, but in a way I'm not sure it was needed and when all of the loose ends were tied up at the close of the book, I was left thinking, "oh, ok, that's it then." I'd basically worked out what had been going on with the postcards well before that and there was no twist in the tale.
Still, it was a nice easy read, it was 20p on kindle and would probably make quite a good book club pick for any London-based book clubs.
View all my reviews
Monday, March 18, 2013
Trends in homicides in England and Wales: comparison of death registration and police report data
This paper was originally written by my former colleague, Cleo Rooney, and me for the WHO Family of International Classifications Network meeting held in Reykjavik on 24-30 October 2004. It used to be online at http://www.nordclass.uu.se/WHOFIC/papers/reykjavik84.pdf but that URL no longer works so I'm putting it online here so it isn't totally lost to the world!
Title: Trends in homicides in England and Wales: comparison of death registration and police report data
Authors: Cleone Rooney Clare Griffiths
Purpose: For information.
Recommendations: Further work is needed on improving the international comparability of vital statistics on homicide.
Abstract:
It is difficult to produce timely statistics on the annual number of deaths from assault from vital registration data. Full information about these deaths only becomes available after legal processes, which may take many months to complete. This can mean that these deaths are not registered in time to be included in annual statistics, or that they are registered before the cause of death is known.
In England and Wales, up to half the deaths eventually classified as assault (X85- Y09) may not appear as such in the original annual statistics. Deaths being investigated as homicide and registered before the cause can be certified fully are assigned a temporary underlying cause code of Y33.9 (E988.8 in ICD-9), and a manner of death code indicating that the verdict is still 'pending investigation'. These are identified as 'probable homicide /assault' in ONS mortality statistics, but not in WHO or EUROSTAT publications, which cannot accommodate such national departures from standard ICD coding and tabulation.
We have compared vital registration and police statistics from the Home Office to derive best estimates of numbers and patterns of deaths from homicide in England and Wales. Both data sources give similar pictures, and confirm that ONS figures on 'homicide and probable homicide' are consistent with statistics of deaths reported to the police / being investigated as homicide.
Work by the International Collaborative Effort on Injury Statistics(1) suggests that the quality and completeness of deaths registered as homicide may vary considerably between countries. Policy makers and pressure groups use these data for international comparisons. More work is needed to improve the comparability of these data and to educate users about these issues.
Introduction
In England and Wales, all suspicious deaths must be reported to the coroner for investigation before they can be registered.(2,3) If the police report that charges are to be brought against anyone in relation to the death or that the death is being investigated as homicide, the coroner adjourns the inquest to await the results of investigation and legal proceedings. Since 1978 it has been possible to register deaths at this point – known as accelerated registration.(4) ONS assigns a temporary underlying cause code of Y33.9 (E988.8) to these deaths. Since 1993, ONS has also coded coroner’s verdicts or 'manner of death'. These adjourned inquest deaths are assigned a code indicating that the verdict is 'pending investigation'. The coroner will normally update ONS with the final verdict and cause of death when these are known. This process can take months, or even years. This means that up to half the deaths eventually classified as homicide/assault (X85-Y09, E960-E969) may not appear as such in the original annual statistics.
For deaths since the beginning of January 1993, ONS updates the coding on its dynamic national mortality database when further information is received. Deaths on this database coded to Y33.9/E988.8 at any given time will include:
(a) deaths where an inquest has been adjourned as described above. Most of these will eventually be recoded on receipt of further information, and all but a few will be recoded either to homicide or to land transport accidents.
(b) a very small number of deaths registered after a completed inquest which delivered an 'open' verdict and a cause of death of injury or poisoning which could not be assigned to any more precise code. These deaths will retain the Y33.9/E988.8 code for underlying cause of death.
Methods of producing statistics on homicides
There are therefore several different ways of examining homicide trends in England and Wales,(5) using the number of deaths coded to:
1. X85-Y09 (E960-E969). This is the basic ICD classification, to which all homicides should eventually be assigned.
2. X85-Y09, plus Y33.9 (E988.8). This takes account of accelerated registrations, as described above. This is a simple adjustment, which can be done using published figures by underlying cause, without requiring knowledge of the progress of inquest proceedings. It will include a handful of deaths which were probably not homicides, since the inquest verdict was 'open'.
3. X85-Y09, plus Y33.9 with a pending verdict. This allows more exactly for accelerated registrations which are likely to become coded to homicide.
[Note that in 2007 ONS changed the code it used for deaths where the inquest was adjourned to U50.9 in order reduce the possibility of confusion in suicide statistics. This means the best estimate of homicide deaths is now obtained by using X85-Y09 plus U50.9]
Comparison of ONS and Home Office data
Home Office (Justice Department) figures are based on the year in which the offence was first recorded by the police, which may not be the year that the death occurred or was registered. The initial number recorded for the year may subsequently be reduced as a result of decisions by the police or the courts that no offence of homicide took place.(6) Revised figures which take account of these changes are published regularly.
* As at 23 August 2004
** includes homicides by Harold Shipman in the year they occurred
*** As at 13 November 2003
Source: ONS and Home Office
ONS deaths data are now tabulated by the year in which they occurred, so the figures cannot be matched exactly with Home Office data. However, they do show very similar patterns and trends since about 1960 (Figure 1). In the 1950s numbers from death registrations were considerably lower than homicides recorded by the Home Office, and may have been incomplete. The closest correspondence is between Home Office figures for deaths initially recorded as homicide, and ONS 'total' figure – that is the sum of deaths certified as homicide, and coded to X85-Y09 in time for routine annual publication and deaths certified after adjourned inquest coded to Y33.9.
Figure 1 also illustrates the variation which may occur in ONS annual figures due to differences in how long after the end of the data year the data are extracted and analysed. The number of deaths coded to homicide in the 1993 annual publication was among the highest ever, whereas the total including E988.8 'pending' was similar to other years in the early 1990s. The reason is that the annual extract for 1993 was taken 15 months later than usual, because of changes in ONS computer systems. By that time, ONS had received many more updates on accelerated registrations than would be usual.
Patterns of homicide in England and Wales
Death rates due to homicide are generally higher in males than in females, this difference being greatest in young adults. Rates among children and the elderly are more similar between males and females (Figure 2). The highest homicide rates in both sexes are in infants. Rates for young men have increased between 1993-1997 and 1998-2002, as have rates among infants of both sexes. In other age groups, rates have remained similar between the 2 time periods.
Comparison with European Union data
Table 1 shows a comparison of homicide rates in the EU15 countries from Key Data on Health 2002, based on annual published data. We have also added the England and Wales rate based on the best estimate of homicides described above. Clearly, the ranking changes considerably when corrected figures are used. England and Wales had the 6th highest rates in men and 5th highest in women, compared with the ranking for the UK on published data of 14th and last respectively. As Scotland and Northern Ireland have higher homicide rates than England and Wales, UK rates would show an even greater difference. However, this comparison ignores any differences in data from other countries. A recent study of the comparability of cause of death statistics in the European Union(7) found that death rates could vary substantially due to differences in certification practice and laws. This particularly applies to external causes of mortality, such as homicide and suicide, where legal definitions also come into play.
Table 1. Age-standardised homicide rates per 100,000 population, European Union 15 countries, 1998
The need for better international comparisons
Work by the International Collaborative Effort on Injury Statistics suggests that the quality and completeness of deaths registered as homicide may vary considerably between countries. Comparisons of homicide rates in countries participating in the ICE(8) showed that rates in England and Wales were lower than those in Scotland, New Zealand, Israel, Australia and Canada even after including adjourned inquest deaths. They were higher than Denmark, the Netherlands, Norway and France. However, French death registration figures probably underestimate homicides and other injury deaths because INSERM does not have access to cause of death information on deaths subject to forensic investigation.(9) The directly age-standardised homicide rate in the USA was six and a half times that in England and Wales.
Policy makers and pressure groups use homicide data for international comparisons. More work is needed to improve the comparability of these data in international publications and to educate users about their use.
References
1 Rooney C, Warner M, Fingerhut L. Results of the ICE on injury survey of death certification and vital statistics. Proceedings of the International Collaborative Effort on Injury Statistics. Volume III. Washington DC, June 1999.
2 Coroners Act 1988
3 Devis T and Rooney C. Death Certification and the epidemiologist. Health Statistics Quarterly 1, pp 21-33, 1999.
4 OPCS Mortality statistics England and Wales; Deaths from injury and poisoning; 1978. HMSO: London, 1980.
5 Rooney C and Devis T. Recent trends in deaths from homicide in England and Wales. Health Statistics Quarterly 3, pp 5-13, 1999.
6 Home Office. Criminal Statistics: England and Wales: 1997. TSO: London, 1998.
7 European Commission DG SANCO agreement. Comparability and Quality Improvement of European Causes of Death Statistics. Final Report. Centre d'épidémiologie sur les causes médicales de décès. Institut national de la santé et de la recherche médicale, July 2001.
8 Fingerhut L, Cox C and Warner M, International Comparative analysis of injury mortality: Findings from the ICE on Injury Statistics. NCHS Advance Data No 303, October 1998. NCHS, CDC, US Department of Health and Human Services.
9 Lecomte D, Hatton F, Renaud G, et Le Toullec A, Les suicides en Ile-de-France chez les sujets de 15 a 44 ans; resutats d’une étude coopérative. Bulletin épidémiologique hebdomadaire 2, pp 5-6, 1994.
Title: Trends in homicides in England and Wales: comparison of death registration and police report data
Authors: Cleone Rooney Clare Griffiths
Purpose: For information.
Recommendations: Further work is needed on improving the international comparability of vital statistics on homicide.
Abstract:
It is difficult to produce timely statistics on the annual number of deaths from assault from vital registration data. Full information about these deaths only becomes available after legal processes, which may take many months to complete. This can mean that these deaths are not registered in time to be included in annual statistics, or that they are registered before the cause of death is known.
In England and Wales, up to half the deaths eventually classified as assault (X85- Y09) may not appear as such in the original annual statistics. Deaths being investigated as homicide and registered before the cause can be certified fully are assigned a temporary underlying cause code of Y33.9 (E988.8 in ICD-9), and a manner of death code indicating that the verdict is still 'pending investigation'. These are identified as 'probable homicide /assault' in ONS mortality statistics, but not in WHO or EUROSTAT publications, which cannot accommodate such national departures from standard ICD coding and tabulation.
We have compared vital registration and police statistics from the Home Office to derive best estimates of numbers and patterns of deaths from homicide in England and Wales. Both data sources give similar pictures, and confirm that ONS figures on 'homicide and probable homicide' are consistent with statistics of deaths reported to the police / being investigated as homicide.
Work by the International Collaborative Effort on Injury Statistics(1) suggests that the quality and completeness of deaths registered as homicide may vary considerably between countries. Policy makers and pressure groups use these data for international comparisons. More work is needed to improve the comparability of these data and to educate users about these issues.
Introduction
In England and Wales, all suspicious deaths must be reported to the coroner for investigation before they can be registered.(2,3) If the police report that charges are to be brought against anyone in relation to the death or that the death is being investigated as homicide, the coroner adjourns the inquest to await the results of investigation and legal proceedings. Since 1978 it has been possible to register deaths at this point – known as accelerated registration.(4) ONS assigns a temporary underlying cause code of Y33.9 (E988.8) to these deaths. Since 1993, ONS has also coded coroner’s verdicts or 'manner of death'. These adjourned inquest deaths are assigned a code indicating that the verdict is 'pending investigation'. The coroner will normally update ONS with the final verdict and cause of death when these are known. This process can take months, or even years. This means that up to half the deaths eventually classified as homicide/assault (X85-Y09, E960-E969) may not appear as such in the original annual statistics.
For deaths since the beginning of January 1993, ONS updates the coding on its dynamic national mortality database when further information is received. Deaths on this database coded to Y33.9/E988.8 at any given time will include:
(a) deaths where an inquest has been adjourned as described above. Most of these will eventually be recoded on receipt of further information, and all but a few will be recoded either to homicide or to land transport accidents.
(b) a very small number of deaths registered after a completed inquest which delivered an 'open' verdict and a cause of death of injury or poisoning which could not be assigned to any more precise code. These deaths will retain the Y33.9/E988.8 code for underlying cause of death.
Methods of producing statistics on homicides
There are therefore several different ways of examining homicide trends in England and Wales,(5) using the number of deaths coded to:
1. X85-Y09 (E960-E969). This is the basic ICD classification, to which all homicides should eventually be assigned.
2. X85-Y09, plus Y33.9 (E988.8). This takes account of accelerated registrations, as described above. This is a simple adjustment, which can be done using published figures by underlying cause, without requiring knowledge of the progress of inquest proceedings. It will include a handful of deaths which were probably not homicides, since the inquest verdict was 'open'.
3. X85-Y09, plus Y33.9 with a pending verdict. This allows more exactly for accelerated registrations which are likely to become coded to homicide.
[Note that in 2007 ONS changed the code it used for deaths where the inquest was adjourned to U50.9 in order reduce the possibility of confusion in suicide statistics. This means the best estimate of homicide deaths is now obtained by using X85-Y09 plus U50.9]
Comparison of ONS and Home Office data
Home Office (Justice Department) figures are based on the year in which the offence was first recorded by the police, which may not be the year that the death occurred or was registered. The initial number recorded for the year may subsequently be reduced as a result of decisions by the police or the courts that no offence of homicide took place.(6) Revised figures which take account of these changes are published regularly.
** includes homicides by Harold Shipman in the year they occurred
*** As at 13 November 2003
Source: ONS and Home Office
ONS deaths data are now tabulated by the year in which they occurred, so the figures cannot be matched exactly with Home Office data. However, they do show very similar patterns and trends since about 1960 (Figure 1). In the 1950s numbers from death registrations were considerably lower than homicides recorded by the Home Office, and may have been incomplete. The closest correspondence is between Home Office figures for deaths initially recorded as homicide, and ONS 'total' figure – that is the sum of deaths certified as homicide, and coded to X85-Y09 in time for routine annual publication and deaths certified after adjourned inquest coded to Y33.9.
Figure 1 also illustrates the variation which may occur in ONS annual figures due to differences in how long after the end of the data year the data are extracted and analysed. The number of deaths coded to homicide in the 1993 annual publication was among the highest ever, whereas the total including E988.8 'pending' was similar to other years in the early 1990s. The reason is that the annual extract for 1993 was taken 15 months later than usual, because of changes in ONS computer systems. By that time, ONS had received many more updates on accelerated registrations than would be usual.
Patterns of homicide in England and Wales
Death rates due to homicide are generally higher in males than in females, this difference being greatest in young adults. Rates among children and the elderly are more similar between males and females (Figure 2). The highest homicide rates in both sexes are in infants. Rates for young men have increased between 1993-1997 and 1998-2002, as have rates among infants of both sexes. In other age groups, rates have remained similar between the 2 time periods.
Comparison with European Union data
Table 1 shows a comparison of homicide rates in the EU15 countries from Key Data on Health 2002, based on annual published data. We have also added the England and Wales rate based on the best estimate of homicides described above. Clearly, the ranking changes considerably when corrected figures are used. England and Wales had the 6th highest rates in men and 5th highest in women, compared with the ranking for the UK on published data of 14th and last respectively. As Scotland and Northern Ireland have higher homicide rates than England and Wales, UK rates would show an even greater difference. However, this comparison ignores any differences in data from other countries. A recent study of the comparability of cause of death statistics in the European Union(7) found that death rates could vary substantially due to differences in certification practice and laws. This particularly applies to external causes of mortality, such as homicide and suicide, where legal definitions also come into play.
Table 1. Age-standardised homicide rates per 100,000 population, European Union 15 countries, 1998
The need for better international comparisons
Work by the International Collaborative Effort on Injury Statistics suggests that the quality and completeness of deaths registered as homicide may vary considerably between countries. Comparisons of homicide rates in countries participating in the ICE(8) showed that rates in England and Wales were lower than those in Scotland, New Zealand, Israel, Australia and Canada even after including adjourned inquest deaths. They were higher than Denmark, the Netherlands, Norway and France. However, French death registration figures probably underestimate homicides and other injury deaths because INSERM does not have access to cause of death information on deaths subject to forensic investigation.(9) The directly age-standardised homicide rate in the USA was six and a half times that in England and Wales.
Policy makers and pressure groups use homicide data for international comparisons. More work is needed to improve the comparability of these data in international publications and to educate users about their use.
References
1 Rooney C, Warner M, Fingerhut L. Results of the ICE on injury survey of death certification and vital statistics. Proceedings of the International Collaborative Effort on Injury Statistics. Volume III. Washington DC, June 1999.
2 Coroners Act 1988
3 Devis T and Rooney C. Death Certification and the epidemiologist. Health Statistics Quarterly 1, pp 21-33, 1999.
4 OPCS Mortality statistics England and Wales; Deaths from injury and poisoning; 1978. HMSO: London, 1980.
5 Rooney C and Devis T. Recent trends in deaths from homicide in England and Wales. Health Statistics Quarterly 3, pp 5-13, 1999.
6 Home Office. Criminal Statistics: England and Wales: 1997. TSO: London, 1998.
7 European Commission DG SANCO agreement. Comparability and Quality Improvement of European Causes of Death Statistics. Final Report. Centre d'épidémiologie sur les causes médicales de décès. Institut national de la santé et de la recherche médicale, July 2001.
8 Fingerhut L, Cox C and Warner M, International Comparative analysis of injury mortality: Findings from the ICE on Injury Statistics. NCHS Advance Data No 303, October 1998. NCHS, CDC, US Department of Health and Human Services.
9 Lecomte D, Hatton F, Renaud G, et Le Toullec A, Les suicides en Ile-de-France chez les sujets de 15 a 44 ans; resutats d’une étude coopérative. Bulletin épidémiologique hebdomadaire 2, pp 5-6, 1994.
Wednesday, March 13, 2013
Born in Lewisham
The next event for the Save Lewisham Hospital Campaign is a Born in Lewisham Hospital 'hands around our hospital' this Saturday 16th March. The plan is to assemble in front of the hospital at 2pm, with the chain starting at 2:30pm followed by events and music from 2:45pm to 4pm. The campaign say If you, your children, your sister or brother, your boyfriend or anyone you know was born in Lewisham Hospital – or if you to continue to defend the services at our hospital come along.
The Millwall bus and mascot will be there too if Millwall are your sort of thing.
The campaign are also asking you to share your photos for the Born in Lewisham Hospital Hall of Fame. The photos can be of you, if you were born in Lewisham, your grown up children or grandchildren, as long as you have permission, or your own young children and babies.
Both my children were born in Lewisham hospital and I've written about my experience with James elsewhere. With Claud things ran a little more smoothly, but I'm grateful to the hospital for looking after me and them on both occasions.
Unfortunately we can't be there on Saturday, so I'm sharing my photos here instead and encourage you to share yours with the campaign too by emailing the campaign with your photos at savelewishamhospital@yahoo.com.
James then:
James now:
Claud then:
Claud now:
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