Deprivation, disease, and death in Scotland: graphical display of survival of a cohort.

Death rates are widely used as a convenient way of summarising important aspects of health in a population. However, they are not always easy to interpret, and even when techniques such as standardisation are used the impact of premature death may be difficult to assess. Cohort analysis provides summary information that takes account of age at death and that can be displayed graphically in a readily understood format. First used in 1870 by the statistician William Farr, this straightforward technique deserves wider use. It is widely accepted that deprivation increases the risk of early death. However, the age at which death from specific causes occurs and the relative contributions of these causes to mortality are rarely described clearly. We used data on survival in a cohort of middle aged people, divided into groups according to deprivation, to examine the relation between age, deprivation, and causes of death in a straightforward and graphical way.