title: A neighbourhood level mortality classification of England and Wales, 2006-2009.
abstract: The paper provides an overview of a neighbourhood level classification of mortality for England and Wales (2006-2009). Standardised mortality ratios for 63 causes of death were calculated for middle super output areas (weighted by prevalence). A k-means partitional method was used to classify the data. An eight cluster solution was found to best segment mortality patterns. Clusters mostly differentiated in terms of prevalence, however the importance of neurodegenerative diseases and causes related to unhealthy behaviours were important. The results describe a neighbourhood classification that can be an important tool to help inform policy development, resource allocation and targeting of services.
authors.affiliation: School of Health and Related Research (ScHARR), University of Sheffield, Sheffield, UK. Electronic address: mark.green@sheffield.ac.uk.
authors.forename: Mark A
authors.initials: MA
authors.lastname: Green
authors.affiliation: Department of Geography, University of Sheffield, Sheffield, UK.
authors.forename: Daniel
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Vickers
authors.affiliation: School of Geography and the Environment, Oxford University, Oxford, UK.
authors.forename: Danny
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Dorling
mesh_terms: D002423:Cause of Death / Q000639:trends*; D016000:Cluster Analysis; D016208:Databases, Factual; D003710:Demography; D004739:England / Q000453:epidemiology; D006801:Humans; D009026:Mortality / Q000639:trends*; D012111:Residence Characteristics; D014852:Wales / Q000453:epidemiology
keywords: Classification; Cluster analysis; Demography; Mortality