Medical research in the Rhondda valleys

Abstract

This brief review has highlighted some of the research done by the MRC in the South Wales valleys. The two MRC Units published, in total, over 2000 reports ranging from letters to journals to conference proceedings, with around 200 reports appearing in the BMF, Lancet and Nature alone. The expertise gained in South Wales meant that the Pneumoconiosis Research Unit team was involved internationally in co-ordinating research on coal workers' lung disease, and later on the health effects of asbestos and other respirable dusts. It is remarkable that the early large-scale studies were conducted and analysed without the benefits of modern computers and statistical packages. The varied Epidemiology Unit research programme enabled Cochrane to develop his ideas on defining health and evaluating health services, and also Elwood, who directed the Unit from 1974 to 1995, to pioneer studies of aspirin prophylaxis in cardiovascular disease. A steady stream of occupational health studies were carried out by Epidemiology Unit staff and many other large surveys were conducted in other parts of South Wales and across the country. Later MRC Epidemiology Unit work has focused on the town of Caerphilly where a prospective study of some 2500 men, established in 1979, has so far resulted in over 100 papers, notably on haemostatic factors related to heart disease. The study has run in tandem with a similar survey in the Speedwell area of Bristol which was established by former Epidemiology Unit staff working for the health authority in that area. Other medical research groups have also worked in the South Wales valleys. In 1961 Julian Tudor Hart left the Epidemiology Unit after a year's research to enter general practice, and establish the famous research practice at Glyncorrwg, over the mountain from the Rhondda Fawr. This year the extensive collection of MRC survey records is being transferred to the Department of Social Medicine at Bristol, and it is quite likely that further research will be undertaken relating Rhondda survey data collected over 40 years ago to subsequent mortality. The South Wales valleys will continue to contribute to medical research into the next millennium. Archie Cochrane's papers have been catalogued and are available for study at the Cochrane Archive established at Llandough Hospital.