The ‘ins’ and ‘outs’ of disease in Bradford: An inverse correlation between coronary disease and skin cancer.
Filed in: Case Studies, Mapping Software
January 19, 2012
In a collaboration with Beacon Dodsworth, the North West Public Health Observatory used P² People & Places and the national Hospital Episode Statistics (HES) data to investigate the effect of lifestyles on disease rates. We found some interesting results…
The method used was to scan the HES data for the incidence of certain diseases as classified by the International Classification of Disease. Because disease rates change with ageing, to model the effects of lifestyle and other demographic characteristics, the data were analysed in age bands separately before being combined.
The animated map below compares the incidence of coronary disease and skin cancer in the Bradford Local Authority area. The deeper the red the higher the likelihood of developing the disease. It is interesting to note the inverse correlation – where one is higher than average the other is lower than average.
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Posted by Geoff Beacon, Chairman at Beacon Dodsworth.
October 26, 2012 by Meic Goodyear
Did you consider ethnicity? Black & Minority Ethnic groups generally seem to have high Cardiovascular Disease rates, but skin cancer (especially melanoma) is protected against by dark skin pigment, so the effect is not altogether surprising. Also, skin cancer is sufficiently rare that I’d expect very wide confidence intervals on the data at small area level.
October 26, 2012 by Geoff Beacon
Thank you Meic.
We believe that our P² People & Places is more sensitive to the effects of ethnicity than some other geodemographic classifications but I suspect there is also a wealthy/poor distinction acting here as well.
Using the directly standardised disease rates that were used to generate the maps, I have calculated rates for Male Coronary Disease for our wealthiest groups (P² trees A to H) and also for the poorest groups (P² trees J to M). These bracket the groups (P² tree I) with a higher concentration of Black & Minority Ethnic groups.
The ‘wealthy’ group have the lowest rates of Coronary Disease, the ‘poor’ group next and the BME group have the highest rates. For Male Skin Cancer, the order is reversed.
The BME group (our P² tree I) may be due to the causes you suggest. The reversed positions for Male Coronary Disease and Male Skin Cancer for ‘rich’ and ‘poor’ may be because the diet (or other lifestyle characteristics) of the poor lead to more coronary disease but they may not be able to afford to go on holiday to sunny places so often to expose themselves to higher risks of skin cancer.
OK, that’s speculation – or can we call it a topic for research.