SOCIOECONOMIC STATUS AND MORTALITY: A BRISBANE AREA ANALYSIS

Abstract

For the purposes of an area analysis of social class and mortality (from 1976 to 1979) Brisbane City was partitioned into five strata with roughly equal populations ranked on the basis of a socioeconomic suburb score derived from aggregate census data. Deaths by suburb, age, sex and cause were available from annual computerised mortality files and population age and sex distributions were computed from census statistics and inter‐censal estimates. Mortality rates were found to be higher in lower‐ranking strata overall, and for circulatory, external (such as accidental) and respiratory causes but not for neoplasms other than lung cancer. The implications of these results are discussed. 1987 Public Health Association of Australia