Health Report

Despite war's strains, the U.S. death rate is not rising. It began going up last September, soon reached a plateau 8 to 10% above the average for the past three years, has stayed there ever since. The Public Health Service reports that in 90 large U.S. cities during the first 16 weeks of 1943, 160,113 people died compared with 146,156 in the same period in 1942--an increase of 9.5% (city rates are not comparable to all-U.S. rates, because rural rates are always lower).

The high rates are not easily explained. All that health officials can point to are the increased deaths from pneumonia and meningococcus meningitis (TIME, March 22). A recent Public Health Service survey of absenteeism among industrial workers shows that, in the final quarter of 1942, respiratory diseases were sharply on the rise among the 250,000 men studied. The Metropolitan Life Insurance Co.'s Statistical Bulletin reports a 5.5% increase in deaths among industrial policyholders and adds some clues on 1943 trends:

> Pneumonia deaths, though low compared with pre-1941 rates, were 21% higher than during the first quarter of 1942. Atypical or virus pneumonia, a lung infection whose cause is not certainly known, was responsible for many cases.

> Meningitis increased sharply.

> Deaths from diabetes, cerebral hemorrhage and heart disease were up, the last two showing the highest rates on record.

> Still going down: tuberculosis deaths and maternal mortality.

> The insurance company found that fatal accidents in U.S. homes have increased (The National Safety Council reported last month that while U.S. armed forces have lost 12,123 dead since Pearl Harbor, on the home front accidental losses totaled 128,000, of which 64,000 were factory workers on their jobs).

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