Health and Hygienic Studies of the People in Shiga Prefecture Based upon Death Certificates

Part 4. Summary, Discussion and Conclusion

Abstract

In the preceding three reports, the duration of life of the people in the four districts, the statistics of the causes of death and those of infant deaths have been analysed . The synthetic results of these analyses are as follows: 1) Up to 1949 social development was not so effective for these districts as to improve mortality explicitly. Owing to the sudden social improvement after the War, a remarkable change in mortality and the principal causes of death occurred in 1950 and a marked decrease in infant mortality occurred in 1955. 2) In each district the effort of prevention is now being focused on neurologic and sensory diseases. With infants, they are gastroenteritis, pneumonia and neonatal diseases. Recently cancer and accidents at ages under 25 have become the leading causes of death. 3) The people of Yogo-mura are most longevious. This is evidently the result of careful health services, especially for infants, and sufficient relaxation during a long winter. 4) Kutsuki-mura has many characteristics in the statistics of mortality . This seems to be attributable to the heavy labor of the men and women in mountains all day long and throughout the year. 5) It must be pointed out that for Kutsuki-mura the number of infant deaths must be decreased by further improving the health services for infants, and that for Shigaraki-cho and Yogo-mura there is some room for improvement in the deaths of 14 years of age. 6) A marked variation by sexes in mortality has not been observed except the large number of male deaths from beriberi and female infant deaths in Kutsuki-mura and the double number of male deaths from accidents in all the districts.