Abstract
The average life span in Ibaraki Prefecture was reported to be lower than the national average; that of males is 0.5 years and that of females is 0.6 years lower (Ibaraki Shimbun Newspaper, August 4, 2013). We analyzed the relationships among the standardized mortality ratios, the number of hospital beds per 100 thousand population, and the distances to emergency centers from the places of residence to see how these factors affected the average life span. The results are as follows: (1) As for the total area of Ibaraki Prefecture, the standardized mortality ratios of heart disease and pneumonia positively correlated with distances to emergency centers from the places of residence. (2) As for the differences in gender, the male average life span negatively correlated with the standardized mortality ratios of cerebrovascular disease, diabetes, and pneumonia, and positively correlated with the number of hospital beds per 100 thousand population, whereas the female average life span negatively correlated with the standardized mortality ratios of diabetes and heart disease. (3) As for the changes in mortality ratios owing to the changes in critical care system, there was an area where the standardized mortality ratio of heart disease did not correlate significantly with distances to emergency centers from the places of residence, supposedly owing to the development of a helicopter-aided critical care system. However, the Kashima-Namegata areas, which ranked within the bottom fifty in Japan in terms of average life span, require urgent measures.
