Geographic correlation between deprivation and risk of meningococcal disease: an ecological study

BMC Public Health

Table 1 Meningococcal disease in the eastern region, 1999 and 2000: Incidence rates after division into thirds by ward Townsend score

	Least deprived wards	Intermediate wards	Most deprived wards
Number of wards ^a	384	383	384
*Range of ward Townsend scores*	-6.26 to -2.19	-2.2 to-0.33	0.34 to 8.44
*Number of cases* ^b *(all ages)*	88	97	267
*Total population* ^c *(all ages)*	1,473,272	1,506,359	2,271,294
*Incidence [corrected]* ^d(cases /100,000 /yr)	3.0 [5.1] (2.4 – 3.7)^e	3.2 [5.5] (2.6 – 3.9)	5.9 [10.1) (5.2 – 6.6)
*Incidence relative risk compared to least deprived wards [CI]*	1.00	1.07 [0.80–1.43]	1.97 [1.55–2.51]

(a) Census wards 1991, divided by Townsend index, from 1991 census (b) All cases of meningococcal disease (confirmed and probable) from enhanced surveillance data, CDSC eastern, included in analysis (c) Population estimates for 1999, Compendium of Health and Clinical indicators 2001, adjusted as in methods (d) Corrected to allow for the loss of 42% of cases. Corrected incidence = uncorrected/0.583. Assumes losses are equal across deprivation groups (e) Poisson confidence intervals – see methods

ISSN: 1471-2458