Wednesday, October 18, 2017

Freezing to death

More people die in the cold winter months than in the other seasons.

In Scotland, new figures show an increase in the number of winter deaths of 421 on the previous year. There were 20,930 deaths registered in the period December 2016 to March 2017, the latest figures showed, up from 20,509 the previous year.


The “seasonal difference” for winter 2016/17 was 2,720. Seasonal difference is calculated by comparing the number of deaths in the four winter months with the average for the two adjacent four-month periods, the 2016/17 seasonal difference of 2,720 was slightly lower than the corresponding figure of 2,850 for winter 2015/16.   Overall, the seasonal increase of 2,720 in winter 2016/17 was smaller than in most of the 65 previous winters, but it was still above the level seen in five of the previous ten winters.

Very few deaths were caused by hypothermia. The underlying causes of most of the ‘additional’ deaths are circulatory system diseases (such as coronary heart disease), respiratory system diseases (such as pneumonia), dementia, Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s and other degenerative nervous system diseases. In only a small proportion of deaths is influenza recorded as the underlying cause.


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