The Grim Reapers road map: An atlas of mortality in Britain

Bethan Thomas and Daniel Dorling from the University of Sheffield, together with Mary Shaw and George Davey Smith from the Department of Social Medicine at the University of Bristol , have created this impressive atlas of death in Britain .
The Grim Reaper's road map analyses over 14 million deaths over the 24 year period 1981-2004 in Britain . It gives a comprehensive overview of the geographical pattern of mortality in Britain and features:

• The most common causes of death at different ages
• 10 groups of death mapped – all deaths, and deaths from cardiovascular, cancer, respiratory, infections, mental disorder, transport, suicide or undetermined, homicide and external causes.
• 99 separate causes of death mapped, including individual cancers, suicides, assault by firearms, multiple sclerosis, pneumonia, hypothermia, falls, and Parkinson's disease
• Each map is accompanied by a detailed description and brief geographical analysis, together with the number of people who have died from that cause, the average age of death and ratio of male to female deaths

The study showed that the mortality rate for those in the most deprived areas in 1981 was 20% higher than the national average, but this rose to 50% by 2004.

The number of people dying from violence, alcohol and suicide had also increased significantly between 1981 and 2004.

The report also shed light on the most common causes of death for different age groups.

Transport-related accidents - such as on the roads - were found to be the biggest cause of death for those between the ages of 10 and 24 and suicide and drugs became the biggest killers in urban Britain for those in their 20s, while road accidents were the leading cause of death in the countryside at that age.

For more information on this study please click here