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Reid A, Garrett E, Dibben C, et al. 'A confession of ignorance': deaths from old age and deciphering cause-of-death statistics in Scotland, 1855-1949. Hist Fam. 2015;20(3):320-344doi: 10.1080/1081602X.2014.1001768.
Reid, A., Garrett, E., Dibben, C., & Williamson, L. (2015). 'A confession of ignorance': deaths from old age and deciphering cause-of-death statistics in Scotland, 1855-1949. The history of the family : an international quarterly, 20(3), 320-344. https://doi.org/10.1080/1081602X.2014.1001768
Reid, Alice, et al. "'A confession of ignorance': deaths from old age and deciphering cause-of-death statistics in Scotland, 1855-1949." The history of the family : an international quarterly vol. 20,3 (2015): 320-344. doi: https://doi.org/10.1080/1081602X.2014.1001768
Reid A, Garrett E, Dibben C, Williamson L. 'A confession of ignorance': deaths from old age and deciphering cause-of-death statistics in Scotland, 1855-1949. Hist Fam. 2015 Jul 03;20(3):320-344. doi: 10.1080/1081602X.2014.1001768. Epub 2015 Feb 05. PMID: 26900320; PMCID: PMC4738191.
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Hist Fam. 2015 Jul 03;20(3):320-344. doi: 10.1080/1081602X.2014.1001768. Epub 2015 Feb 05.

'A confession of ignorance': deaths from old age and deciphering cause-of-death statistics in Scotland, 1855-1949.

The history of the family : an international quarterly

Alice Reid, Eilidh Garrett, Chris Dibben, Lee Williamson

Affiliations

  1. Cambridge Group for the History of Population and Social Structure, Department of Geography, University of Cambridge , Cambridge , UK.
  2. Department of Geography and Sustainable Development, University of St Andrews , St Andrews , UK.
  3. Research Institute of Geography and the Lived Environment, School of GeoSciences, University of Edinburgh , UK.

PMID: 26900320 PMCID: PMC4738191 DOI: 10.1080/1081602X.2014.1001768

Abstract

A large amount of the research undertaken in an attempt to discover the reasons underlying the late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century mortality decline in Britain has relied on the statistics published by the Registrars General. The processes by which individual causes of death are recorded and then processed in order to create the statistics are not, however, well understood. In this article, the authors build on previous work to piece together a time series of causes of death for Scotland, which removes many of the discontinuities encountered in the published statistics that result from the Registrar General deciding to update the nosology, or classification system, which was being used to compile his figures. Having regrouped individual causes of death to 'smooth' the time series, the authors use the new groups to examine the changing causes of death in Scotland for selected age groups, before turning to undertake a detailed examination of mortality amongst those aged 55 or more. The authors find that when deaths from 'old age' in the latter age group are separated from other 'ill-defined' causes, it becomes obvious that there was a 'rebranding' of cause of death. The authors then use individual-level data from two Scottish communities to further dissect the roles played by 'informants' and 'doctors' in this rebranding, in order to see how these roles may have altered over time and what the consequences might be for one's view of how mortality changed in Scotland between 1855 and 1949. Finally, the authors argue that their findings have important implications for some of historical demography's most prominent theories: the McKeown thesis and the theory of epidemiological transition.

Keywords: Scotland; cause of death; epidemiological transition; mortality; old age

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