The Nation's Ailments
The Survey of Sickness issued on Thursday by the Ministry of Health is yet another example of this age's abandonment of laissez- faire, its desire to work on an orderly basis of statistics. Actually it is somewhat surprising to learn that up to three years ago there was no nation-wide measurement of general illness. The only indica- tions of the country's lack of health were the National Insurance records and the figures of compulsorily-notified diseases and of fatal illnesses. However, in January, 1944, the beginning of a wider survey was made by the Social Survey organisation which undertakes various investigations for Government Departments. Trained interviewers were sent to different parts of the country to make personal enquiries about individuals' ailments and accidents during the last three months, and now about 3,000 people in England and Wales are being interviewed monthly. The information gained from these samples may be, as Sir Wilson Jameson, Chief Medical Officer of Health, says in his introduction to the survey, "of great value in adjusting our health services to the needs of the community and in assaying . . . progress." Already some interesting conclusions emerge—that women, for example, are slightly more liable to sickness than men, that nervous complaints are more general in summer, that the most healthy part of the country is the belt running from west to east, across the centre—but from a report covering only a little over two years these assumptions' are bound to be tentative. The survey, however, is to continue ; there will be progress reports from time to time, and data will be published in the quarterly returns of the Registrar General They should add to the value of such documents.
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