Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is officially worse in Thanet than in any other part of the country. COPD is, basically, characterised by increasing airflow obstruction, which is not completely reversible. Each year it kills 30,000 in the UK and it kills far more than average in Thanet!

It costs a lot of money to treat and results in a lot of lost work hours - 24 million working days a year, in fact. The total cost to the NHS each year is somewhere in the order of £800 million. If things were not bad enough already a leading factor in the cause of the disease is "socio-economic deprivation" - the biggest problem in Thanet.

"Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is a major but neglected public health problem. Currently 1.4% of the England population has a clinical diagnosis of COPD, but the true burden of the disease has not been known with certainty, as many cases remain undiagnosed."
SOURCE: Model for estimating the population prevalence of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease: cross sectional data from the Health Survey for England, Luis C Nacul, Michael Soljak, and Tom Meade, March 2007

The national average rate for COPD is 41.7 per 1,000 adults or 4.17% but it is much higher in Thanet:

"An analysis by the Eastern region public health observatory estimates the number of people with COPD is ...64.4 per 1,000 [adults] in Thanet, Kent ...where it has almost doubled."
Lung disease worse than estimated, hsj.co.uk (signup required)

Why are things so bad here?

It is an old story of a vicouse circle and part of the oft ignored story of why poverty is such a hard cycle to break even when you have a compitant administration in charge (and I have my doubts about the current one). Social and economin deprivation goes hand in hand with smoking and lack of motivation (thus lack of learning, lack of excersise and lack of hope). All of these things make it far more likely that an individual will suffer this and other diseases.

As a result people become sick, can not work and end up unemployed and on sickness benefit. Then idiot reporters come along and call them names wondering why so many are "on the sick" making it all the harder to get out of the "sickness danger zone" that goes with poverty. Poverty is a self maintaining trap and it requires a great sustained feat to escape. Sure there are little things that you can do to help but at the end of the day pulling free is not easy.

"As expected, the prevalence of COPD is higher in smokers and in men, and it increases with age. Other risk factors of public health importance include air pollution, socio-economic deprivation, occupational exposures and possibly ethnicity. "
SOURCE: Model for estimating the population prevalence of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease: cross sectional data from the Health Survey for England, Luis C Nacul, Michael Soljak, and Tom Meade, March 2007

Thanet by it's run down nature is a surefire hot spot for sickness and disease. When a council or other administration acts to cause poverty in the area where you live they are actually committing muder and getting away with it. They are shortening your lifespan.

I'd like the so-called leadership of Thanet to tell me why I should live ten to twenty years less for their mistakes. That sort of theft does not sit well with me. What about you?

If you feel so inclined I understand that you can download the raw data here.