Exercise: Deaths from volatile substance abuse
This is a section from Martin Bland's text book An Introduction to Medical Statistics,
Third Edition. I hope that the topic will be useful in its own right,
as well as giving a flavour of the book. Section references are to the
book.
Exercise 16E: Deaths from volatile substance abuse
Anderson et al. (1985) studied mortality associated with volatile
substance abuse (VSA), often called glue sniffing. In this study all known
deaths associated with VSA from 1971 to 1983 inclusive were collected,
using sources including three press cuttings agencies and a six-monthly
systematic survey of all coroners. Cases were also notified by the Office
of Population Censuses and Surveys for England and Wales and by the Crown
Office and procurators fiscal in Scotland.
The table shows the age distribution of these deaths for Great Britain
and for Scotland alone, with the corresponding age distributions at the
1981 decennial census.
Volatile substance abuse deaths and population size for Great Britain and for Scotland alone, by age
Age group
(years)
| Great Britain
| Scotland
|
| VSA deaths
| Population
(thousands)
| VSA deaths
| Population
(thousands)
|
| 0-9
| 0
| 6,770
| 0
| 653
|
| 10-14
| 44
| 4,271
| 13
| 425
|
| 15-19
| 150
| 4,467
| 29
| 447
|
| 20-24
| 45
| 3,959
| 9
| 394
|
| 25-29
| 15
| 3,616
| 0
| 342
|
| 30-39
| 8
| 7,408
| 0
| 659
|
| 40-49
| 2
| 6,055
| 0
| 574
|
| 50-59
| 7
| 6,242
| 0
| 579
|
| 60+
| 4
| 10,769
| 0
| 962
|
Questions about these data:
-
Calculate age specific mortality rates for VSA per year and for the whole
period. What is unusual about these age specific mortality rates?
-
Calculate the SMR for VSA deaths for Scotland.
-
Calculate the 95% confidence interval for this SMR.
-
Does the number of deaths in Scotland appear particularly high? Apart from
a lot of glue sniffing, are there any other factors which should be considered
as possible explanations for this finding?
Reference
Anderson, H.R., MacNair, R.S., and Ramsey, J.D. (1985) Deaths from
abuse of substances: a national epidemiological study. British Medical
Journal 290, 304-7.
Solution to this exercise.
Back to An Introduction to Medical Statistics
contents.
Reports on deaths
associated with volatile substance abuse.
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Last updated: 14 April, 2004.
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