§ Mr. CohenTo ask the Secretary of State for Health (1) if he will list the infant mortality rates in(a) East London/City, (b) Redbridge and Waltham Forest and (c) Kingston and Richmond; and what factors underlie the disparities between these figures; [17428]
(2) what assessment he has made of the factors underlying significant variations in infant mortality rates in (a) the United Kingdom and (b) London. [17427]
670W
§ Mr. HoramThe infant mortality rates requested are as shown in the table:
Infant mortality rates per 1,000 live births 1994 Location Rate per 1,000 live births East London and The City Health Authority 8.8 Redbridge and Waltham Forest Health Authority 6.7 Kingston and Richmond Health Authority 3.1 The infant mortality rate for England and Wales as a whole has halved over the last 15 years and is now at the lowest level ever achieved. All parts of the country have benefited from this reduction, but variations in infant mortality, which have been apparent since the 1950s, have persisted. Last October, we asked health authorities to act on the recommendation of a report commissioned by the Chief Medical Officer, "Variations in Health: What can the Department of Health and the National Health Service do?", copies of which are available in the Library. We have also allocated £2.4 million in 1996 for research into the causes of variations in health and the needs of particularly vulnerable groups of the population.