International Journal of Epidemiology 2001;30:1116-1118
© International Epidemiological Association 2001
Social Epidemiology |
Commentary: Short days—shorter lives: studying winter mortality to get solutions
Research Unit in Health, Behaviour and Change, University of Edinburgh Medical School, Teviot Place, Edinburgh EH8 9AG, UK. E-mail: Richard.Mitchell@ed.ac.uk
‘People who are getting up in years ... die in the winter when the days are short, and in the hours after midnight. Life is at a low ebb after midnight and in the short days. Did you know that?’ Ira Solenberger, quoted by Roy Redd ‘An Ozark gardener, 86, awaits coming of the greening season’. NY Times 12 April 1976
‘Clearly, if disease is manmade, it can also be man-prevented. It should be the function of medicine to help people die young as late in life as possible.’ Dr Ernst Wunder, President, American Health Foundation: NY Times 30 September 1975
The papers by Aylin and colleagues and by van Rossum and colleagues in this volume of the International Journal of Epidemiology explore the seasonality of mortality.1,2 These
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