Infectious Diseases and Regional Differences in Finnish Death Rates, 1749-1773

The paper deals with regional differences in Finnish death rates for the period 1749-1773 and the reasons for these differences. A sample was taken consisting of 51 rural parishes, eight urban parishes and three deaneries and representing 18.3 per cent of all deaths in Finland over the 25-year period. In cities the death rate in all age groups was higher than in rural districts. Infant mortality, stood at 290 in urban parishes but at 197 in rural ones; and the differences between the various rural parishes were larger still, ranging from 89 to 545. These differences were too large to be attributed to faulty registration. We have selected those urban and rural parishes for detailed analysis in which death rates were extremely high or extremely low. Mortality from infectious diseases (smallpox, measles, typhus, ‘burning fever’, pulmonary tuberculosis, whooping cough, dysentery, malaria) was noticeably higher in cities than in Finland as a whole. Among rural parishes it amounted to 135.4 per 10,000 population in the highest group but to 72.5 in the lowest. This suggests that regional differences in mortality were associated, at least in part, with these infectious diseases. This was however, a partial explanation only; further analysis confirmed the hypotheses that not only air, insects and physical contact, but also food and especially water were means of spreading infection. Analysis also supported the conclusion that there existed only a slight positive correlation between mortality and economic indicators during the period 1749-1773. First, mortality and infant mortality were higher in wealthy regions. Secondly, in towns and in rural parishes with the highest death rates age-specific mortality rates for the age group 0-9 reached a maximum in July and not during the spring months as would have been expected if starvation or malnutrition had been a central background factor

Environmental health · Geography · Malaria · Measles · Mortality rate · Plague (disease) · Population · Rural area · Smallpox · Socioeconomics · Sociology · Typhus · Vaccination · Climate Change and Health Impacts · Demography · Health Promotion and Cardiovascular Prevention · Historical and modern epidemiology studies · Historical Economic and Social Studies · History · Immunology · Medicine · Virology

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