Map of the week - How will you die?
My blog styles itself "the way we live". But this week's Map of the Week is all about "the way we die".
'The Grim Reaper's road map', published today, analyses almost 15 million death records for the years 1981 to 2004, exposing the patterns of death in modern Britain.
"There's nothing certain in a man's life except this: That he must lose it" as Aeschylus noted. But, of course, very few can be certain where or when their end will come.
If you want a clue, this week's maps offer just that. They show the most common cause of death for seventeen age groups in a thousand separate neighbourhoods over 23 years. And an extraordinary tale they tell.
The authors have selected nine causes of death - cardiovascular, cancer, respiratory, infections, mental disorder, transport, suicide or undetermined, and homicide. (Occasionally data is suppressed in places with very few deaths in a particular age band.)
The story begins in the first year of life when the most common cause of death is respiratory. But the second map for ages 1 to 4, reveals a much wider variety of causes of death groups. There is no obvious geographical patterning apart from transport being more prevalent as a cause of death in the north than the south.
For the next age group, 5-9, transport deaths dominate the northern half of the map even more, while childhood cancers are the most common causes of death in the southern parts of the country.
By the ages of 10 to 14, deaths from traffic are most common across even more of the country.
As we move on to the next age band, 15-19, the shades on the map change radically. In most places, the most common cause of death for older teenagers is transport but in many urban areas it is suicide or undetermined intent. Two neighbourhoods in Glasgow have homicide as the most common cause of death for this age group.
By the early twenties, transport and suicide or undetermined remain the most common groups but suicide or undetermined intent is much more prevalent, with almost all of the urban areas having this as the most common cause of death.
The Easterhouse neighbourhood of Glasgow is the only place where homicide was the leading cause of death in this period. (Homicide does not appear on any of the older age group maps, but appears somewhere on every map for every younger age group.)
As we move into the late twenties, we begin to see cancer creeping into the picture and by ages 30-34, the map colours change radically again, with cancer now dominant, particularly in rural areas. In other rural neighbourhoods we start to see cardiovascular causes appearing.
By the ages of 35-39 the map is dominated by cancer as the most common cause of death, but cardiovascular causes are now becoming evident in northern urban areas.
There then follows a series of maps covering the five-year age bands from 40-44 through to 70-74.
On all of these maps the most common causes of death are cardiovascular or cancer and they show the changing geographical variation across these years of age. At younger ages cardiovascular causes dominate in the northern parts of the country and London, and gradually extend southwards and eastwards.
By ages 65-69, cardiovascular is the most common cause of death across almost all of the country, apart from a ring in the south east around London where cancer dominates. At 70-74, only one neighbourhood,
Surrey Heath North, has cancer as the most common cause of death, the rest of Britain having cardiovascular as the main cause.
At ages 75 and over, the leading cause of death in every neighbourhood is cardiovascular and so the whole map is a single colour. I'd be delighted for you own observations on these maps. Does your neighbourhood have an unusual death pattern? What are the explanations?
The maps also expose misplaced priorities, it seems to me.While we obsess about knife crime and drugs, the real killers of our young are transport and suicide.
I'm 
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Finally 4000 deaths a year on British roads becomes an issue! As you say it makes knife crime look small. So why don't we make a fuss? I challenge the BBC to use the daily TV news to list the 11 people a day who are dying this way, by name. Then we would start to make progress against the causes of these unnecessary deaths. I wonder where on the list of causes drunken, speeding or mobile phone using drivers would stand?
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I completley agree with the above comment.I lost my partner in a road traffic accident last year.The road he died on is horrendous and there have been other crashes at the exact same place,but not a thing has been done to make it safer.I know what it feels like to loose a loved one this way and would never wish for anyone to go through it.So why not do more for road safety.
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knife crime is small when you compare it to road deaths, but! cars are important things that we can't do without, so it will be brushed under the carpet. I wonder how much of the cancer we see in towns is a direct link to cars and the poisons they churn out, but theres no need to look at things like that when you can blame smokers for killing people with lung cancer etc.
Save your teeth and shed that weight with sweeteners. These turn to poisons and toxins in your body the same ones as smoking plus a few others that bring on diabeties, lupus and eventualy shorten your life.
Still its the one thing we all share and no one can claim any more or anyless of thier fair share of it.
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I would dearly LOVE to see the BBC reporting these sorts of statistics on the news and on Radio4. Perhaps one a day. "Today X people died in traffic accidents\Y from suicide\Z etc". Too often we get given the 'interesting' cases that only occur once in a proverbial blue moon.
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I agree with the comments about road safety but what I feel this also highlights is the need for extra funding into mental health issues. I have known of people with very serious issues who have nearly become one of the statistics on the map and yet what help they have had from their doctor and the NHS is at best patronising and at worst appauling. For many people the answer is not to just put them on drugs and up the dosage every couple of weeks. I am aware there are no magic wands but when the issue is obviously so serious within our society then you would think more could be done.
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1-4 are spot on.
Terry Jones wrote a wonderful parable about our dangerous love affair with the car (remember, love is blind).
Search on Carnifex (latin for executioner) or go here http://quickrelease.tv/?p=637
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This is a breakthrough in social reporting. It replicates the methodology used to report "years of life lost through premature death" which was a major influence in health planning in Canada in the late 1970's. Why did not someone think of this before - it's great.
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Agree 100% with 1-4 and 6. Why doesn't this make the news? Why is it tolerated? I don't mean in terms of individual accidents, but the ongoing scandal of 3-4000 deaths a year - more than guns, knives, Ecstasy, cocaine, superskunk and domestic violence put together.
Even in the creation of this (fascinating) statistical map there is a whiff of euphemism. 'Transport', eh? Let's be clear, 90% of these deaths are caused by a particular kind of transport - the privately owned kind with four wheels and a combustion engine - not trains (which seem to get a huge amount of coverage on the very very rare occasion they cause loss of life), not planes (ditto, though admittedly they're a much smaller number of journeys), nor bicycles, nor good old feet.
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A fascinating map. Unless I've missed something, the map only shows the proportion of each cause of death, not the total number of deaths. While traffic deaths in early teens, suicide in the 20s and cancer in the 30s and 40s look alarming, covering much of the map, the number of deaths would be small compared to the 60+ maps. An interesting variant on this map would be to allocate a colour for people who survive, to show how much sparser the distribution of deaths is at younger ages.
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One of my earliest recollections of town life (when I was about 7 or 8), prior to the 1975 reorganisation of local government, was the prominent 'noticeboard' at the town hall which displayed the running total number of local road deaths so far in the current year, compared with the total for the previous year.
The inexorable rise in the number of deaths over the course of the year was, in a very real sense, frightening.
I don't know whether it was a cost-cutting exercise by the new council, or if some other reason was at play, but the abandonment (and eventual removal) of the signage is something I have always viewed as an error of judgement.
I will be writing to my local weekly newspaper to ask the editor to consider carrying just such a total in the editorial column - no commentary necessary, just the figure - and I urge others to do likewise.
Like fire, road transport is a wonderful servant but a fearful master...
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I live in Czech Republic and every day on the television you see reports of car crashes.
Often the imagery is very graphic, wrecked cars, coffins placed in to vans etc. However, makes no difference. People are still driving like crazy. Also, it's not always kids trying to be speed racer, it's often people who are tired, intoxicated, wired to stay awake but are driving to get to that place they need to be, work, a sick relative, a party...
No element of road safety will stop people having the need "to get there". You all I am sure never drive above the speed limits ever and have never been in a hurry...?
As for why the attention to stabbings...well, that just sells papers. Sensationalism is hard to achieve when it happens everyday.
We live in a world of self made pressures and stress. Things must be easier and faster for us to use. We're impatient beings at best and for what?
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Ugh, I'm re-green colour-blind along with a significant minority of males, and can't tell anything at all about the later maps as to me the cancer and cardiovascular colours look the same. Any chance of a change of colour?
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finally, a decent, interesting map (series) from Mark
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Hi Mark, grim map! however you don't reveal your sources, which makes me wonder why they chose effects / symptoms rather than causes. Wasn't funded by the drinks industry was it? The human body is affected by all sorts of things and for young people road traffic is a real danger. Older people are subject to the effects of all sorts of substances like first hand and second hand smoke, alcohol, pollutants and accidents. Life expectancy has shot up since we stopped digging up our own coal, or making stuff in dangerous factories. Lots of people are still killed on building sites though, or were until a few months ago. The cardiovascular effects of stress ( unemplyed bankers??) will not be seen for a bit yet. The comment above about mental health problems in young people and in the general population can't be ignored. Agree whole heartedly with 5 and 9.
I'm just listenning to Michael Palin on Radio4 reading about having a diagnosis of panceatic cancer. It's only death after all, but a diagnosis, now that gives one clarity of purpose.
Drink related deaths have doubled in the last 20 years, especially among women, who are drinking more even though they are more susceptible. We don't get safe routes to and from the pub or off licenece, but the numbers are about the same. Road safety = drink safety? I think not.
Cause or effect now that would be an interesting map. 3D overlays would work well. With the population unable to move due to the Credit Crunch we would get a real picture of where you die from just "being there". Cornish Radon gas?
The suburban pollution around London( deaths from ) would make the extension of the Congestion Charge look like a mild mannered attempt to give the population a helping hand. No mention about how many murders were drink related either. oh Well. My answer is to keep breathing out.
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@ Jonathan (#9) - true, otoh there is also quality-of-life-years to be taken in to account. Anything that tries to place a differential value on human lives is of course controversial, but there is, i think, general sentiment that a life lost 50 years too soon is a greater loss than one lost 5 years too soon. Not that that's much comfort to grieving relatives.
@ strcprstskrzkrk - sad but true, same thing in Spain. But isn't the problem more a society that decides people 'need to be' at places, and provides - in many cases - no other means than that which causes thousands of deaths a year. It's actually not an insoluble problem, but the difficulty is that individuals by and large have poor intuition for cumulative or dispersed risk - like smokers and lottery players, most people feel lucky every time they sit behind the wheel, 'til their luck runs out. As a result, people are unwilling to accept the cost or inconvenience of alternatives, like safe public transport that actually works properly outside of major conurbations, or drastically reduced speed limits.
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Well, much as I hate to put a subject so much at issue with people here into perspective, let's look at some FACTS.
Speeding results in only 3% of fatalities on the roads. Tiredness or driving without due care and attention is the biggest killer.
Also to be considered are the actions of the 'victims' themselves in lots of cases. Recently a number of cyclists have died as a result of collisions with buses and lorries. Invariably the press screams about the driver of the large vehicle being to blame but in the cold light of day the recklessness of the cyclists is ignored.
Where I live, cyclists pull out onto main roads without stopping, cycle through red lights, over zebra crossings with pedestrians on them, attempt to pass vehicles on the inside despite the vehicles indicating their intention to turn left.
That said, many drivers including myself could and would benefit from having a refresher test as the dynamics of driving on the road change on a regular basis.
I would also like to point out that with the volume of vehicles on the road, 4000 deaths is a fairly small number by comparison to the level it could be.
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Well we can add another knife crime victim to this list today.
Mark can we have a map of teenage deaths through drugs and drug related activity.
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Well i was just thinking about buying a car and wondering what to do with my life and i'm 27.
I think i'll keep walking and smile more tbh.
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14 - "for young people traffic is a real danger" (sic)
I don't think you quite get the map - traffic accidents are the highest cause of death in teenagers and young adults - that doesn't mean more are killed by traffic than older people, just that as they are a group are generally at a healthy age and unlikely to be killed by anything other than accidents (or deliberate murder/suicide)
I can sense some people misreading this and seeing some sort of epidemic going on - it's just the highest cause of death in one age group - that could be 1 road death in one area in one age group, and 50,000 in another
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When the BBC reports on one of the political parties at election time they have to balance it by reminding us that there are other parties; in the interest of fairness and accuracy, when they broadcast a piece on young people killed by violent attacks shouldn't they have to remind us of the number of young people killed in road accidents for comparison. Not to do so is distortion of the truth by omission.
As the government like league tables - what about publishing a list of the biggest child killing makes of car and putting health warnings on the back of the worst offenders?
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By all means give us details of road deaths every day, but please sub-divide the number into 2 categories ; one where the driver of the car was at fault and one where the driver of the car was not at fault.
And please don't come back and say "the driver always bears some responsibility" ; if a cyclist jumps a red light and goes under a truck, it is definitely not the driver's fault if they were obeying all the rules of the road at the time.
It is my firm belief that people in London, with their extensive (and expensive) transport networks should not be allowed to pass judgement upon car drivers until we all have the same level of transport as they do.
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If people were taught to drive defensively rather than agressively then the number of road deaths would plummet (drivers of expensive German cars please note).
There are very few true 'accidents' on our roads, in most of them one or more of the drivers involved is guilty of basic misjudgement, or carelessness or just downright arrogance or stupidity.
The law should come down much harder on motorists who cause injury or death and stop treating the perpetrators so leniently.
If I wanted to kill someone today and get off lightly, I would not even consider a knife or gun - I would simply run them over with a vehicle and get 6 months suspended.
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There already seems more fuss than one expect regarding road deaths. The fact is that generally speaking, no one is deliberately trying to cause death or injury on the road. That's why they are called accidents. It is a dangerous place which one chooses to use at one's own risk.
As in many aspects of life, balance is needed. Policing of reasonable behaviour is, of course, necessary; but as free individuals we ought not want the authorities to be overly protective. Life is a risk, no one's got out of it alive yet.
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after having my mind downloaded into an artifical inteligence my husk of a body will be converted to soylent green and kept as a food stuff when global food stock are empty.
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@ veritablemonster - true that speeding as legally defined - 'breaking the speed limit' - results in only a small proportion of deaths. However there would be far fewer deaths from 'lack of due care and attention' - or even 'pedestrian at fault' - were the speed limit for urban areas to be set at 20mph rather than 30. Yes, there are other countries with far worse death rates, but the death rate for other forms of transport is between 10x and 1000x lower in both per journey and per mile terms. Is it fair to 'punish' motorists by taking 10mph off the speed limit when not all the accidents are their fault? Perhaps not, but with 4,000 dying a year, many of them kids, isn't reducing that figure more important than quibbling over the fairness of any new regulation?
@ SteveDubya - it's not jumping lights that by and large causes cyclists to end up under trucks (it does cause cyclists to hit pedestrians, though fatalities there are uncommon), it's trucks turning left over the top of them. Bad road use by the (usually women, and usually obeying the law) cyclists - yes, certainly, but they've been told repeatedly by people that ought to know better to keep in to the left, out of the way of the cars, hence they end up on the left hand side of trucks - a very dangerous place to be. The testosterone-fuelled males who jump lights are less afraid to go around the (safer) right hand side of trucks and get out in front.
In any case, people outside of London and other big cities - who effectively don't have a choice - are the ones who should be protesting this most loudly, at least Londoners have the option of just getting on the tube.
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While each death is horrible. 4,000 is not by any means a bad figure in the general scheme of things. This figure is unlikely to ever get much lower. The simple reason being diminishing returns from investment.
In the UK, we have put a lot of effort and money into reducing traffic deaths. At first this investment produced a good return. But the easy things have been done. All extra money / legislation / police resources that have been put in recently haven't produced any meaningful return. Resources are finite. We would be much better off looking for areas where there would be a better return on investment.
Personally, I think we should be looking at investing money in school playing fields. The figures for child diabetes are becoming truly frightening. A relatively small investment here, will both save a lot of money in health care costs, and produce much better lives for people in years to come.
By the way. The maps are very useful. Any chance that the BBC will make statistics and map reading qualifications a pre-requisite for employment for all of their journalists?
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The problem with cause of death statistics is that they are single variable: the primary cause on the death certificate. OK, so someone is killed in a car accident, or suffering from cancer. But, underlying contributory factors in say cardiovascular disease may be smoking, obesity, anxiety disorder, et.al. Some people just wear out at 95, and whatever is on the death certificate is not really the cause.
An interesting question: would moving somewhere else increase life expectancy?
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I totally agree with comment 5. I find it shocking that despite 25% of the population suffering from some form of mental illness in their lifetime, most likely depression, it is still seen as a taboo subject and often kept out of the news in favour of shock knife crime stories.
I have suffered first hand at the shocking service offered by the NHS and am lucky to be alive today.
Thousands of people of all ages either commit or attempt to commit suicide every year and yet nothing is ever done about it. There are 9.2 deaths per 100,000 population and this is a small fraction of the number of attempted suicides.
With the proper care and support, this number can easily reduced if only the issue was addressed and additional funding was made available.
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The figures for child diabetes are becoming truly frightening.
think you should take a look at this.
http://www.aspartamekills.com/symptoms.htm.
then reflect on the rise of illness listed in the document.
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I suspect the difference between Surrey Heath North and other areas, particularly for the over-70s group, may simply reflect 'differences in reporting'. Ultimately, everyone dies from 'heart failure' And that is what appears on the death certificates of many elderly people who die from cancer. Perhaps Surrey Heath North looks beyond the moment the heart stops, and asks 'what caused that'?
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so no chance of dying simply of old age then...... we must all pop our clogs from disease or accident or violence...... sweet, am now suicidal!
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Blame the teenagers with knives, thats much easier than blaming dangerous drivers.
Then again transport could mean our children are killed by falling planes!
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i will probably died of old age.....
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