Self reported health and mortality: ecological analysis based on electoral wards across the United Kingdom.

relationships between prescribers). Strategies for improvement should include developing incentives for chronic considerations and for active learning in geriatrics by junior doctors 12 13 ; developing systems for reliable transfer of information; increasing involvement of patients; and encouraging communication between prescribers. We thank the participants who gave up their time to be interviewed. We also thank Michel Lambert and Felicity Smith for helpful comments about the study design; Dominique Paulus and Jean-Marc Feron for conducting focus groups; Stéphanie Arman for conducting the second set of observations ; Françoise Van Bambeke for the analysis of reliability; Jean-Marc Feron for revising quotes; and Martin McGarry for help with translation. The senior care study. The optimal use of medications in acutely ill older patients. Effects of geriatric evaluation and management on adverse drug reactions and suboptimal prescribing in the frail elderly. 5 Larson EB. General internal medicine at the crossroads of prosperity and despair: caring for patients with chronic diseases in an ageing society. 9 Dickinson D, Raynor DK. What information do patients need about medicines? Ask the patients—they may want to know more than you think. BMJ 2003;327:861. 10 Mold F, McKevitt C, Wolfe C. A review and commentary of the social factors which influence stroke care: issues of inequality in qualitative literature. Improving geriatrics training in internal medicine residency programs: best practices and sustainable solutions. Translating learning principles into practice: a new strategy for learning clinical skills. The question in the UK 1991 census that asked respondents whether they had a limiting long term illness proved useful for allocating health service funding. 1 In the 2001 census a question on general health in the previous year was added to improve further the understanding of health needs and refine resource allocation. However, these indicators differ from objective measures of health in that they are also dependent on the perception of, and propensity to report, health problems. We explore the relation between the self reported responses to the two census questions cited above and mortality across the UK regions. We derived three indicators of health for each of 10 604 UK electoral wards. Pooled all cause mortality rates for 2000-2 were generated for the English, Scottish, and Welsh wards. For Northern Ireland, where wards are smaller, we pooled data for 1998-2002. We derived two morbidity indicators from the self report health questions in the 2001 census: the proportion of ward respondents reporting limiting …