Introduction

Summary

1 What this book is about

This is an atlas of death. On these pages we show how death came to people on one small island over the course of some 24 years. Death comes to us all, but at different times and in different forms. When records of all deaths are brought together, patterns can be seen across the land. Each of our individual deaths cannot be predicted with great accuracy. However, collectively, mortality rates and variation by cause are known to be strongly patterned, according to our age, sex, when and where we were born, where we have moved to, the jobs we have done or not done, rewards we did or did not receive, and all the myriad environmental, social and economic ‘insults’ and benefits that our minds and bodies have suffered or rejoiced in. The understanding and depiction of the Grim Reaper’s travels here uses ideas and methods drawn from medical sociology, computer cartography, clinical epidemiology and health geography. Understanding a little about these perspectives will enhance your understanding of what this atlas shows, and that is what the introduction to this book is about.

The book does not show simple or conventional maps. On a simple map of mortality most people will have died in those towns and cities where most people live, particularly in the places where there are more elderly people. This, however, is not an atlas for undertakers who need to know where the greatest numbers of people die. It is an atlas for those interested in the health of us all, including those who have died in the recent past and those who have many years left to go. Because we are interested in all people of all ages living in Britain, the maps used here are all population cartograms, where the projection used scales area so that each town and city in Britain is drawn roughly in proportion to its resident population while remaining located in roughly the right place on the map in relation to other places in Britain. We say ‘roughly’ twice here because we have also ensured that the maps show simple geometric shapes to aid legibility and to make the maps comparable to other atlases we have drawn.